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JVAYNE  S.  VUCINICH 


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GEISEL  LIBRARY 

ONlVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SAN  DitGC 

LA  JOLLA,  CAUFOR^aA 


2iA 


BACKSHEESH! 


Life  and  Adventures 


ORIENT. 


DESCRIPTIVE  AND    HUMOROUS    SKETCHES    OF    SIGHTS  AND    SCENES    OVER 

THE   ATLANTIC,   DOWN   THE    DANUBE,   THROUGH   THE  CRIMEA  ; 

IN    TURKEY,   GREECE,   ASIA-MINOR,   SYRIA,    PALESTINE, 

AND   EGYPT  ;   UP    THE    NILE,    IN    NUBIA,   AND 

EQUATORIAL    AFRICA,    ETC.,    ETC. 

Embellished  with  nearly  Two  Hundred  and  Fifty  Illustrations,  including  Forty-Eight 

full  page  Engravings,  principally  executed  in  London,  Paris,  and 

New  York,  from  Photographs  and  original  Sketches. 


With  fine  Steel-Plate  Portrait  of  the  Author. 


By  THOMAS  W.  KNOX, 

Author  of  "Camp-Fire  and  Cotton  Field,"  "Overland  through  Asia,"  "Underground,"  etc 


HARTFORD,  CONN.: 

A.     D.    WORTHINGTON     &     Cc,     PUBLISHERS. 

Chicago,  Cincinnati,  and    St.  Louis: 
A.  G.  Nettleton  &  Co. 

San  FRANasco:  A.  L.  Bancroft  &  Co. 
1875- 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1875,  ^y 

A.   D.  WORTHINGTON   &   CO., 

In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington,  D.  C. 


AUTHOR'S  PREFACE. 


The  following  pages  are  the  result  of  a  peaceful  crusade  to  the  East, 
undertaken  for  purposes  of  pleasure  and  profit.  The  author  has  en- 
deavored to  combine  the  humorous  features  of  the  journey  with  the 
store  of  useful  knowledge  that  should  be  the  result  of  a  tour  through 
the  Orient.  He  trusts  that  he  has  so  combined  them  that  both  will 
be  satisfactory,  and  that  the  reader  will  be  amused  while  seeking 
instruction  and  instructed  while  seeking  amusement. 

There  is  a  story  of  an  honest  old  Quaker  resident  of  Philadelphia, 
who  sent  his  son  to  make  the  tour  of  Europe.  The  young  man  deter- 
mined to  see  all  that  could  be  seen,  and  gave  his  whole  mind  to  the 
search  for  enjoyment.  When  he  returned  from  his  travels  his  father 
said  : 

"John,  thou  hast  been  absent  a  twelvemonth  and  past,  and  thou 
hast  drawn  on  me  for  eighteen  thousand  dollars.  John,  that  is  a  great 
deal  of  money  for  thee  to  spend  in  one  year." 

"I  know  it,  father,"  was  the  young  man's  response,  "but  I  have  had 
lots  of  fun  for  that  money." 

In  return  for  the  labor  and  fatigue  incident  to  Oriental  travel,  the 
author  believes  that  he  found  an  ample  reward  in  the  entertainment 
and  information  which  the  journey  afforded. 

The  author  is  glad  to  avail  himself  of  this  opportunity  to  express  the 
gratification  he  feels  at  seeing  his  book  so  profusely  and  artistically 
illustrated.  In  this  department  of  the  work  the  publishers  have  dis- 
played their  enterprise  and  liberality  in  such  a  creditable  manner,  as 
to  justly  entitle  them,  not  only  to  the  author's  grateful  acknowledg- 
ments, but  to  the  hearty  thanks  of  all  who  may  read  his  book. 

He  would  also  return  his  thanks  to  the  artists  and  engravers,  who 
have  so  skilfully  designed  and  executed  the  illustrations,  many  of  which 
were  drawn  and  engraved  in  London  and  Paris,  expressly  for  this  vol- 
ume. 

Finally  he  would  thank  most  cordially  the  many  gentlemen  in  the 
various  countries  he  visited  who  gave  him  the  benefit  of  their  personal 
experience  and  observation.  Their  names  are  too  numerous  to  be 
included  in  this  preface,  and  their  nationalities  comprise  nearly  all  the 
civilized  countries  of  the  globe.  T.  W.  K. 


Principally  designed,  or  reproduced  from  pJiotographs,  by  Karl  Giradet,  C.  Faguet,  Frank  Beard, 

James  C.  Beard,  Arthnr  Lmnley,  L.  Hopkins,  and  other  eminent  artists,  and  viostly 

engraoed  by  Messrs.  MoUer,  Pannemaker,  Laplante,  Ousmand,  Qauchard,  and 

other  noted  engravers  of  Paris;  by  W.  J.  Palmer,  and  the  London  Plustra- 

iion  Company,  of  London;  and  by  Charles  Speigle,  of  New  York. 


Page. 

Steel-Plate  Portrait  of  the  Author Frontispiece. 

The  Slm-y-Teller  of  the  Desert— Vnll  Page To  face  Frontispiece. 

Head  Piece v 

Head  Piece ix 

Tail  Piece xxxi 

Head  Piece ji 

Steamer  Day 34 

The  Judge's  First  Day  at  Sea 35 

The  Judge's  Second  Day  at  Sea 36 

The  Race 39 

The  Judge 4° 

A  Practical  Joke 44 

Head  Piece 48 

Fraternizing 5° 

Eternal  Friendship 51 

Proot  of  the  Affray • 5* 

Avenging  an  Insult 54 

"  I  must  have  a  Duel" Si 

An  Imperial  Wine  Cellar 60 

Head  Piece 6j 

"  Salt  by  Yer" 68 

The  Snoring  Match 69 

The  Doubter 7' 

A  Turkish  "  Hamal " 7» 

Tail  Piece 77 

Head  Piece 78 

Among  the  Fleas 79 

A  Toilet  in  Public •. 82 

'•Natives  of  the  Country" 85 

Precautionary  Measures 86 

"  She  is  a  Jewess" 89 

The  Palace  Tshiragan 91 

Head  Piece 95 

Shirking  the  Cemetery 97 

"  Fresh  Paiut" 100 

(iv) 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS.  V 

Page. 

j6.  Driving  a  Bargain 104 

J7.  A  Night  at  Baidar 106 

j8.  Caught  in  the  Act 108 

39.  Tail  Piece 109 

40.  Head  Piece no 

41.  Putting  in  his  "  Best  Licks  " lit 

4z.  "Backsheesh" iij 

4J.  An  Impressive  Scene 116 

44.  Constantinople  from  the  Tower  of  Gclata—'PuW  Page 116 

45.  Head  Piece izj 

46.  A  Street  in  Constantinople 114 

47.  Strategy iz6 

48.  The  Reconnoitre iZ9 

49.  The  Retreat ijo 

JO.  A  Damas-cussed  Dog iji 

51.  Stowing  the  Sandwiches i  jz 

52.  Admiring  the  Mosque ijz 

Si.  A  Sudden  Attack 132 

54.  The  Pursuit ijj 

55.  A  Hopeless  Chase ijj 

56.  "  Retrospection" 134 

57.  Tail  Piece 135 

58.  Head  Piece 135 

59.  A  Sedan  Chair i}6 

60.  A  Turkish  Beauty 137 

6r.  An  Importunate  Moslem 143 

62.  Extorting  "  Backsheesh" 144 

63.  Head  Piece 145 

64.  End  of  the  Fast  and  Beginning  of  the  Feast 146 

65.  "  Good-Bye,  my  Friend,  Good-Bye" 148 

66.  A  Turkish  "  Cavass" 149 

67.  Head  Piece 1 53 

68.  Moslems  at  Prayer 154 

69.  "Bismillah"  155 

70.  The  "Duplicate" 157 

71.  Muezzin  announcing  the  Hour  of  Prayer 158 

72.  An  Oriental  Boot  Jack 160 

73.  Fartha,  or  Opening  Chapter  of  the  Koran 163 

74.  Tailpiece 105 

75.  Head  Piece 166 

76.  A  Whirling  Dervish 170 

77.  Effect  of  too  much  Whirling 171 

78.  Howling  as  a  Profession J73 

7g.  Homcepathic  Treatment 175 

80.  Head  Piece 177 

81.  Some  of  the  Brothers  of  Far- Away  Moses 178 

82.  Interviewing  a  Purser 184 

83.  Head  Piece 187 

84.  Head  Piece 197 

85.  View  of  Athens  and  the  Acropolis 199 

86.  The  Decline  of  Greece 101 

87.  Greek  Priest  of  Modern  Times 204 

88.  "Doing"  the  Ruins 206 

89.  Tail  Piece  an 

90.  Head  Piece 213 

91.  Sending  Up  the  Ear  of  a  Victim 217 

92.  Head  Piece  225 

93.  Pickling  the  "Doubter" 229 

94.  "  Backsheesh !""  Backsheesh  1 " 231 


no. 
III. 


119. 

120. 


vi  LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 


95.  Head  Piece 256 

96.  Inspecting  ttie  Crew 241 

97.  Bad  "Baclcshecsli."— "It  was  Counterfeit" 243 

98.  St.  Jean  D' Acre— Full  Page 249 

99.  A  Tricliy  Beast 254 

100.  Beyrout  and  tlie  Mountains  of  Lebanon— TPull  Page 257 

loi.  "MonDieul    Is  this  the  Party  for  Damascus  ? " 262 

102.  Head  Piece 264 

loj.  The  Cedars  of  Lebanon-Vnll  Page 265 

104.  Cedar  of  Lebanon 270 

105.  Great  Stone  at  Baalbek 272 

106.  Potlal  of  the  Temple  of  the  Sun  at  Baalbek— VnU  Page 275 

107.  Court  of  a  House  in  Damascus 279 

108.  Moslem  Women  Weeping  at  a  Tomb 282 

109.  Syrian  Jew  with  Phylactery 285 

A  Money  Changer  in  the  Bazaar 288 

Flat  Roofed  Houses— Damascus 291 

112.  Abd-el-Kader 293 

113.  We  "Strip  to  ze  buff" 296 

114.  "  You  will  have  all  ze  luxuries" — 296 

115.  We  Enter  "Ze  Bain  Beautiful " 297 

116.  One  of  the  Luxuries 297 

117.  Softening  the  Asperities 298 

118.  A  Hot  One 298 

"  What  is  Curlew  ?  " 305 

A  Bedouin  Encampment 308 

121.  A  Bedouin  of  the  Desert 309 

122.  The  Terror  of  the  Desert  on  his  Arabian  Charger 311 

123.  Biivu  of  Palmyra— VuW  Page 31S 

1Z4.  SeS?wi— Full  Page 3«9 

125.  Mount  Carmel—'P-a.W  Page 3^3 

126.  An  Inhabited  Boot, 325 

127.  Ploughing  in  Syria, 332 

128.  All  that  remains  of  Capernaum, 334 

129.  "Backsheesh!  O  Howadji!" 335 

ijo.  The  Sea  of  Tiberias— VnW  Page 337 

131.  Magdala, 339 

132.  Unhorsing  the  "  Doubter,"  342 

133.  iVazare^/i— Full  Page 345 

134.  Jews  of  Nazareth— V  a\\  Va.^e. 349 

135.  A  Syrian  Water  Bearer, 353 

136.  Jerusalem  and  Surrounding  Country— VaW  Page 359 

137.  Sidon-VnlX    Page 365 

138.  Tyre, 368 

139.  Tail    Piece, 369 

140.  <7«^«— Full  Page 371 

141.  Our  Dragoman,  Ali  Soloman, 374 

141.  "Backsheesh," 376 

143.  Jerusalem  from  the  Mount  of  Olives— VnW  Page 377 

144.  Remains  of  an  Ancient  Arch,  Showing  a  Portion  of  the  Haram  Wall, 3S0 

145.  A  Street  in  Jerusalem,  381 

146.  Arched  Street  and  Fountain,  Jerusalem, 382 

147.  Principal  Street  of  Jerusalem— VnVl  Page 383 

148.  The  Golden  Gate,  Jerusalem,  386 

149.  Interior  of  the  Golden  Gate, 387 

150.  Site  of  the  Temple,  Jerusalem, 3S8 

151.  Ancient  Signet  Ring,  389 

152.  Ancient  Signet  Ring, 3S9 

153.  Exploring  the  Substructions, 390 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS.  Vll 

P«Be. 

154.    Underground—Beneath  the  City  of  Jerusalem— VnW  Page jgi 

ijy.    The  Valley  of  Jehoshaphat, jgj 

156.  Wailing  Place  of  the  Jews,  Jerusalem, 394 

157.  Walls  of  the  Church  of  tM  Presentation— V u.\\  Page 395 

158.  BethlehetJi-Full    Page 399 

159.  Chu/ch  of  the  Xativiti/,  Bethlehem— Vull  Page 40S 

160.  Monastery  of  Mar  Saba— Vull  Page 409 

161 .  A  Formidable  Escort, 414 

162.  Bathing  Place  of  the  Pilgritns  on  the  Jordan— VvM.  Page 4«7 

i6j.    The  "Doubter's"  Mishap 410 

164.  The  Mount  of  Olives— VviW  VSLS^ 413 

165.  Pool  of  Hezekiuh 4^6 

166.  West  Door,  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre 4^7 

167.  Church  of  tM  Iloly  Sepulchre— Full  Page 4^9 

168.  The  Fountain  of  the  Virtjiu, 4J3 

i6g.    "'Doubter'— Sixpence," 4J6 

170.  Jafl'a  Orange  Seller, 438 

171.  Tail  Piece, 439 

172.  Water  Bearers  at  the  Railway  Station,  Cairo, 447 

173.  Praying  in  the  Streets  of  oairo, 448 

174.  Cairo— Pull  Page •  •  449 

175.  Massacre  of  the  Mamalukes-VvLii.  Page 455 

176.  Ismail  Pasha,  Khedive  of  Egypt, 458 

177.  A  Tough  One, 459 

178.  Head  Piece 4^8 

179.  Tombs  of  the  Sultans— Cairo— VvlW  Page 469 

j8o.    "  O  Ye  Thirsty," 47* 

181.  Children  Bread  Sellers  in  the  Streets  of  Cairo, 473 

182.  Mosque  of  the  Sultan  Hassan,  at  Cairo— Full  Page 475 

185.    Young  Street  Arabs  of  Cairo, 477 

184.  Shoe  Peddler  in  the  Bazaar, 479 

185.  Latticed    Windows— Cairo, 480 

186.  An  Auctioneer  in  the  Bazaars, 485 

187.  A  Syce,  489 

188.  Donkey  Drivers  of  Cairo— VvlW  Page 49' 

189.  Not  up  to  the  Dodge, 494 

190.  An  Egyptian  Eunuch 49^ 

191.  An  Arab  School— VvlW  Page S°3 

192.  Ceremony  of  the  Doseh 5'° 

193.  A  Shadoof  for  Drawing  Water  from  the  iVi/e— Full  Page 515 

194.  Climbing  the  Pyramid, S'8 

195.  The  Ascent  of  the  Judge S^° 

196.  An  Arab  Feat,  5^* 

197.  The  Sphinx  and  the  Great  Pyramid  of  Gizeh—VnW  Page 5^3 

198.  A  Nile  Boat 53° 

199.  The  Serapeum— Memphis— Vu\l  Page "7 

200.  Landing/  Place  at  Beni-Soef— Full  Page  545 

201.  Sugar  Cane  Seller  at  Minieh, 54° 

202.  An  Inconvenient  Position ^'^ 

203.  Stout- rpper  Egypt— Full  Page '" 

204.  "Nargeeleh." '^^ 

205.  Siout  Egg  Merchant, ^'^ 

206.  Egyptian   Gamblers, ""^ 

207.  "  Aoz.  Eh  ?" ; ^^ 

208.  "  Dusting "  for  "  Backsheesh," ^^ 

209.  An  Egyptian  Ghawazee, '^ 

210.  Ghawazeeand  Musicians, '7' 

•211.    An  Egyptian  Musician, '7* 

^12.    Egyptian  Water  Can-iers  Filling  their  Jars— Full   Page 575 


VIU  LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Page, 

21  J.  Euins  of  the  Temple  of  Denderah,  Upper  Egypt— VvlVI.  Page 579 

ZI4.  Entrance  to  the  Temjie  of  Luxor— VnW  Page 587 

215.  The  Memnonium  and  the  Ruined  Statue— WuW  Page 59j 

216.  Sitting  Colossi, 595 

217.  A  Fresh  One, 599 

218.  Interior  of  a  Harem— VuW   Page 6oi 

219.  A  Murderous  Assault, 607 

220.  A  Nubian  Belle, 609 

221.  A  Nubian  Lady 610 

222.  An  Egyptian  Sakkieh,  for  Draining  Water  frmn  the  NUe—HviW.  Page 611 

22}.  An  Affectionate  Beast 61} 

224.  Luxuries  of  Camel  Riding 615 

225.  Egyptian  God  Osiris 617 

226.  Egj-ptiau  Goddess  Isis 618 

227.  Island  of  Phila;,  or  Sacred  Island— Vull  Page 619 

228.  Sacred  Lotus  of  the  Egyptians— VnW  Page 627 

129.  Modern  Egyptian  Gristmill 6}o 

2JO.  A  Nubian  Warrior 632 

2JI.  Pajjyrus  of  the  Egyptians— VnW  Page 633 

232.  Biting  the  Dust '. 641 

2}}.  Women  of  Cairo— Full  Page 65  j 

234.  Bread  Seller  in  the  Streets  of  Cairo 659 

135.  A  Lady  of  the  Harem 662. 

2j6.  An  Egyptian  Barber 665 

237.  Alexandria— VnW  Page 671 

238.  Court  of  a  House  in  Egypt, 673 

239.  A  Bedouin  Encampment  near  Cairo, 67J 

240.  The  Madonna  Tree, 676 

241.  Boot  Blacks  of  Cairo, 6yg 

242.  Mosque  of  Sultan  Berkook,  and  Fountain  of  Ismail  Pasha,  at  Cairo, 682 

243.  Modern  Egj'ptian  Oven, 683 

244.  Palace  of  the  Viceroy,  near  Alexandna—V\k\\  Page 689 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER     I 


STEAMER  LIFE  ON  THE  ATLANTIC. 

Leaving  Home— Our  Pilgrimage  Begun— Sights  and  Scenes  on  Deck—"  Life 
on  the  Ocean  Wave  "—Out  at  Sea— The  Traveller's  Little  World— Feeling 
Queer  Inside  !— Delights  of  Sea-Sickness— Reminiscences  of  a  Jolly  Old 
Boy— What  Became  of  the  Judge— Bringing  up  his  Liver  !— Too  Big  for 
his  Berth— Sleeping  in  a  Second-Hand  Coffin— A  Race  with  a  Lemon— 
The  Leg  of  Mutton  Dance— Eccentric  Conduct  of  a  Boiled  Turkey— Too 
Much  Sauce  !— "Dressing  "  the  Judge's  Trowsers— Alone  at  Sea— A  Funny 
Conspiracy— Fate  of  a  Timid  Man— Confidence  Betrayed— The  Young 
Man  from  the  Country— His  Wisdom  and  his  Woes— Drinking  Petroleum 
—The  Judge  Turns  Joker— Who  Owns  the  Ocean  Steamers, 


3J 


CHAPTER     II. 


SCENES  IN  VIENNA.— DOWN  THE  DANUBE. 

On  English  Ground— The  Road  to  the  East— Life  in  the  Austrian  Capital- 
Fun  and  Festivity— Visit  to  the  Big  Beer-Garden— Effects  of  Champagne- 
Animated  Conversation— How  Twenty  Thousand  Dollars  were  Spent — 
The  Man  with  the  Torn  Vest— Headaches  at  a  Discount— Yankees  in  a 
Row— A  Pugnacious  Russian— "  Quits,"  but  not  Satisfied— Challenging  an 

(ix) 


CONTENTS. 

American— The  Fashionable  World— Down  the  Danube— Scenes  on  the 
River— How  Austrian  Cigars  are  Made— An  Imperial  Tobacco  Dealer— 
The  Battle  of  Wagram— Castle  of  Presburg— We  Enter  Hungary— An 
Evening  in  a  Wine  Cellar— Want  of  a  Little  Soap— Night  Scene  on  the 
Danube, 


CHAPTER     III. 

LIFE    AMONG   THE   MAGYARS. 

A  City  of  Renown— Overwhelmed  by  the  Floods— Lying  in  Clover — What  I 
Sawin  the  Hungarian  Capital— "The  Poor  Folks'  Bath"— Rather  Warm 
Quarters— Life  Among  the  Magyars— The  "Miffs"  of  an  Imperial  Couple— 
Her  Majesty's  Choice— A  Model  Captain— Charles  Matthews  and  the  Bow- 
ery Boy— Facts  and  Fancies  of  a  Snoring  Match— The  "Judge"  and  the 
-"  Doubter  "—The  Man  who  Wouldn't  Believe— Who  were  the  "Hamals," 
and  What  They  Did— People  in  Strange  Garments— Baggy  Breeches  versus 
Slop— The  Fortress  of  Belgrade— Servia,  and  What  I  Saw  of  Its  People— 
The  Assassination  of  Prince  Miloch— Rather  Bad  for  Poetry,     -        -        -         63 

CHAPTER      IV. 

NEARING  THE  ORIENT.— "BACKSHEESH  !" 

Among  the  Fleas— The  Mystery  of  the  Bedclothes— A  Cool  Explanation-^ 
Under  the  Spray— What  Became  of  the  Dragon— A  Queer  Story  about 
Flies— What  Is  an  "  Araba?"— Conversation  without  Words— Changing 
Shirts  in  Public — The  Iron  Gate — Scene  at  the  Custom-House — Official 
Obstinacy — The  "  Sick  Man  "—Scenes  in  the  Orient — The  Mysteries  of  the 
Quarantine— How  we  Dodged  the  Turks— The  Turk  and  his  Rosary— Pity 
the  Poor  Israelite  !— Why  an  Unlucky  Jewess  was  Whipped— The  Secret 
of  the  Turkish  Loan— How  the  Money  is  Spent— Ten  Million  Dollars 
Gone!— What  is  "Backsheesh?" 78 


CHAPTERV. 

THROUGH  THE  CRIMEA.— IN  AND  AROUND    SEVASTOPOL. 

A  Visit  to  the  Crimea — The  Porter  with  the  Big  Books — The  Danger  of  Si- 
beria— Our  Entry  into  Sevastopol — Terrible  Reminiscences  of  the  Crimean 


CONTENTS.  XI 

"War — How  we  Shirked  the  Cemetery — The  Great  Dock- Yard  of  Sevasto- 
pol— We  Visit  a  Remarkable  Gunboat — What  we  Saw  Below-Deck — The 
Story  that  our  Landlord  Told — An  Enterprising  Tartar — The  "Doubter" 
Offers  an  Opinion — How  the  "Judge"  Stole  a  Newspaper — Adventures  by 
the  Way — The  "  Doubter  "  gets  into  Trouble — We  Fly  to  the  Rescue — 
Eccentricities  of  a  Selfish  Man — We  Rise  and  Depart,       ■        ■        -        -        93 


CHAPTER     \^I. 

ACROSS     THE    BLACK     SEA. 

A  Visit  to  a  Russian  Police  Office — Smith,  and  What  he  Did — A  Bad  Lot  of 
Passports — A  Race  after  a  Governor  in  a  Drosky — -More  "  Backsheesh" — 
Delicate  Administration  of  a  Bribe — An  Obliging  Subordinate — Attempt 
at  a  Swindle — Scraping  an  Acquaintance — High  Life  on  the  Black  Sea — 
Muscovite  Ladies — Sunrise  on  the  Euxine — Worshipping  the  Sun — Stam- 
boul — Passing  Quarantine — On  the  Bosphorus — A  Magnificent  Spectacle — 
The  Castle  of  Europe — Palaces  and  Villas — Domes  and  Minarets — The 
Golden  Horn — In  Front  of  Constantinople — Rapacity  of  Boatmen — Turk- 
ish Thieves— Streets  of  the  City, 


CHAPTER     VIT. 

CONSTANTINOPLE.— THE  CITY  OF  DOGS. 

Human  Camels — Canine  Colors — The  Dogs  of  Istamboul — Their  Appearance 
and  Moral  Character — How  the  Turks  Regard  Them — "Inshallah" — Con- 
stantinopolitan  Dogsologies — An  Oriental  Dog-Fight — Sagacious  Brutes — 
Cultivating  Canine  Society — "Standing  Treat"  among  the  Curs — Four- 
Footed  Campaigns — Dog-Districts — The  Hostile  Armies — A  Brilliant 
Strategic  Move — Charge  of  the  Light  (Dog)  Brigade — Advance  of  the 
Chefde  Garbage— The  "Army  of  the  West"  in  Retreat — The  "Doubt- 
er's "  Mishap — Full  Details  of  a  Coat's  Detailing — An  Israelite  in  whom 
there  wa J  Guile — No  More  Sandwiches  for  Me,  Sir-r-r,        -        -        -        -       123 


Xii  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER      VIII. 

TURKISH    CURIOSITY    SHOPS.— SIGHTS    AND    SCENES 
IN    THE    BAZAARS. 

Locomotion  in  Constantinople — Horses,  Donkeys,  Shanks'  Mare  and  Sedan 
Chairs— Turkish  Street  Cars — Women  in  Public — The  Veiled  Queens  of 
Seraglios — The  Drugs  of  the  Orient — Henna  and  its  Uses — Ottar  of  Roses, 
Musk  and  Bergamot — Shawls  and  Silks  of  Price — The  Treasures  of  Ormus 
and  of  Ind — The  Workers  in  Precious  Metals — Vases  of  Gold  and  Platters 
of  Silver — An  Aureole  of  Gems — Loot  for  Soldiers  and  Swag  for  Burglars 
— The  Weapons  of  Ancient  Islam — Blades  of  Damascus  and  Swords  of 
Mecca — A  Wonderful  Collection — Old  Clothes  and  New  Truck — A  Seedy 
Moslem  Swindler — An  Exorbitant  "  Backsheesh  " — What  Happened  to  the 
Judge — A  Dispenser  of  Justice  in  the  Lockup, 135, 


CHAPTER     IX. 

LIFE  IN  THE  HAREM.— MYSTERIES  OF  THE  SERAGLIO. 

The  Great  Moslem  Fast — Nights  of  Feasting  and  Days  of  Fasting — The  In- 
junction of  Mahomet — The  Ravenous  Mussulman — An  Hotel  Swindle— A 
Stranger  and  they  Took  Him  In—"  Too  Thin,  Too  Thin"— Greek  Wine- 
Going  Out  in  a  Blaze  of  Glory — Thunder,  Smoke,  and  Flame — The  Ap- 
proach of  the  Sultan — How  he  Looked — A  Peep  at  the  Ladies  of  the 
Harem — The  Veiled  Queens — The  Sultan's  Mother — The  Empress  Eugenie 
at  the  Seraglio — Insult  Offered  to  Eugenie — A  Queen  in  Tears — A  Ques- 
tion of  Court  Etiquette — Murdering  Christians, 145; 


CHAPTER     X. 

THE  MOSQUES.— FAITH  AND   SUPERSTITIONS  OF  THE 

MUSSULMANS. 

Among  the  Mosques — Their  Special  Uses — Greek  Burglars,  their  Capture 
and  Execution — A  "  Firman,"  What  Is  It — A  Turkish  Dragoman — A  Relic 


CONTENTS.  XIU 

of  Ancient  Byzantium — Its  Name  and  Origin — Taking  a  Portrait — Turkish 
Superstitions — Worshipping  in  St.  Sophia — Moslem  Fanatics — Counting 
The  Minarets— What  Came  of  a  Wet  Pair  of  Boots— The  Judge  in  a  Tight 
Place— The  "  Doubter  "  Commits  Sacrilege — Uncovering  a  Sarcophagus — 
Attacked  by  the  Priests— Barefooted  Worshippers— Teachings  of  the 
Koran— Cleanliness  and  Temperance— Why  Turkish  Women  Do  Not  Go 
to  the  Mosques— Why  Good  Mussulmans  Never  Get  Drunk,      -        -        -      153 


CHAPTER     XI. 

WHIRLING    AND     HOWLING    DERVISHES.— WHO    AND 
WHAT   THEY   ARE. 

The  Dervishes  of  Constantinople,  What  Are  They  ?— How  they  Live  and 
What  they  Do— Unclean  and  Devout  Beggars— Where  they  Bury  their  Dead 
—Opening  their  Circus— Removing  the  "Doubter's"  Boots— An  Amusing 
Situation— Clearing  the  Floor  —  Human  Top-Spinning— Dropping  into 
Jelly-Bags- A  Pliable  Lot  of  Living  Corpses— The  Howling  Dervishes— 
Where  and  How  they  Live— A  House  Full  of  Madmen— A  Shrieking 
Chant— "La  Hah  il  Allah  "—Stirring  Up  the  Wild  Beasts— Spectators 
Joining  in  the  Chorus— Horrible  Superstitious  Rites— Treading  on  Sick 
Children— Reaching  Paradise  by  Bodily  Tortures— A  Sad  Disappointment 
—The  Founder  of  the  Sect,  and  who  he  Was— Pulling  Teeth  as  a  Proof  of 
Sanctity, 166 


CHAPTER      XII. 

GOOD-BYE,  CONSTANTINOPLE  !— ADVENTURES  BY  THE 

WAY. 

Tar-Away  Moses,  the  Famous  Guide— His  Numerous  Brothers— His  Shop  in 
the  Great  Bazaar— An  Evening  at  the  "  Foreign  Club"— Dreaming  of  Poly- 
glots  and  the  Tower  of  Babel— More  "  Backsheesh  "—Passing  the  Custom- 
House— How  they  Protect  Home  Manufactures— Standing  Up  for  One's 
Own  Country— "  Honesty  ish  te  Besht  Bolicy"— Borrowing  Money  at 
Twenty  per  Cent.— The  Start  from  Constantinople— A  Hint  to  Travellers- 
Sleeping  in  Public  on  the  Stage— Interviewing  the  Purser— A  Satisfactory 
Arrangement— Baron  Bruck  and  his  Career— Unwelcome  Intruders— 
■Classic  Ground — One  Trifling  Peculiarity,  ^77 


Xiv  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER     XIII. 

SYRA,  THE  MARBLE  ISLAND.— LIFE  IN  AN  ATHENIAN 
HOTEL. 

In  sif'ht  of  Syra — Active  Trade  in  one  Fish — A  town  all  Built  of  Marble — 
The  "  Doubter"  Expresses  his  Sentiments — Gustave's  Adventure — Walk- 
ing on  One's  Ear— "  A  little  more  beer,  boy  !" —The  Pirates'  Retreat- 
Extraordinary  Politeness  in  a  Cafi — A  lesson  for  American  Barkeepers — 
In  the  Stamboul's  Cabin — "  Blowing  great  guns" — A  Tale  of  a  Tub — Honey 
and  Marble — Standing  in  the  City  of  Demosthenes— The  Battle  of  the  Rival 
Hotels — Profanity  in  an  Unknown  Tongue — Out-generaling  Inn-keepers — 
Tricks  on  Travellers — Useful  Knowledge  for  Foreign  Travel,   -        •        -       187 


CHAPTER     XIV. 

ATHENS,  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN.— SIGHTS  AND  SCENES 
IN  THE   GRECIAN  CAPITAL. 

First  Impressions  of  Athens — Opinion  of  the  "  Doubter" — "  Not  Worth  Dam- 
ming"— The  Oldest  Inhabitant  of  Athens — Celebrated  Ruins — Reminis- 
cences of  Greek  Grammar — A  "  Big  Injun"  on  Greek — Drinking  Beer  on 
Sacred  Soil— A  Toper-graphical  Survey — The  Acropolis — What  Is  It .' — 
The  Temple  of  Jupiter  Olympus — Seven  Hundred  Years  in  Building — A 
Young  Englishman  in  -a  Scrape — Sunset  from  the  Acropolis — Byron's 
Glorieus  Lines— The  Parthenon  and  its  Surroundings — Foundations  of 
the  Ancient  Citadel — Excavations  of  Antiquarians — Greek  Art — An  Im- 
portant Discovery — The  Line  of  Beauty, 197 


CHAPTER     XV. 

ROUND     ABOUT     ATHENS.— THE     COUNTRY     OF    THE 
BRIGANDS. 

Mars'  Hill,  the  Place  where  St.  Paul  Preached  on  the  Unknown  God — The 
Prison  of  Socrates — The  Country  of  the  Brigands — Escorted  by  Greek  Sol- 


CONTENTS.  XV 

diers — Captures  by  the  Brigands — How  they  Treat  Captives — Extorting 
Ransoms — Buying  Coins  and  Relics — Swindling  Travellers — Among  the 
Ruins — Strange  Contrasts — "Chafifing"  the  Guide — Position  of  the  Per- 
sian "and  Grecian  Hosts — Xerxes'  Throne — "The  King  Sate  on  the  Rocky 
Brow  " — Making  the  Ascent  by  Proxy — "  I  No  Go  ze  Mountain  " — The 
Battle  of  Marathon — A  Survivor  of  the  Battle — How  the  Victory  was 
Won,  213 


CHAPTER     XVI. 

THE  GLORY  OF  ATHENS.— ITS  SIGHTS,  SCENES,  RUINS, 
AND    RELICS. 

The  Opera  at  Athens — Handsome  Greeks — The  King  and  Queen — A  Lovely 
Trio — Losing  a  Heart — Byron's  "Maid  of  Athens" — How  She  Looked — 
Her  House  and  History — The  Acropolis  by  Moonlight — Waking  the 
Guard— A  Sham  Permit— "Backsheesh  "—The  Parthenon  by  Night — 
Greek  Gypsies — Among  the  Curiosity  Shops — Dr.  Schliemann  and  his 
Trojan  Discoveries — The  Gold  and  Silver  Vases  of  King  Priam — Where 
they  were  Found — Relics  of  the  Sack  of  Troy — Curious  Workmanship — 
Some  Account  of  the  Excavations — We  Leave  Athens — A  Queer  Steamer 
— "  Pay  or  Go  to  Prison  " — End  of  Our  Steamship  Adventure,      -        -      225 


CHAPTER     XVII. 

ADVENTURES  IN  QUARANTINE.— RHODES  AND  ITS 
MARVELS. 

Missing  our  Steamer — A  Serious  Dilemma — A  Study  of  Faces — Making  a 
Row  and  What  Came  of  It — Under  the  Yellow  Flag — Adventures  of  a 
Quarantined  Traveller — Escaping  the  V\a.gvit—Mal-de-Mer—K  Laughable 
Incident — Getting  on  our  Sea-Legs— Custom-House  Troubles — The  Po- 
tency of  "Backsheesh" — Oriental  Fashions  in  New  York — "Doing "a 
Custom-House  Inspector— A  Curious  Tradition— The  "Lamb"  as  a  Trade 
Mark— The  Temple  of  Diana— One  of  the  "Seven  Wonders"— Singular 
Discoveries — A  Horde  of  Scoundrels — The  Island  of  Rhodes — The  Colos- 
sus—A Wonderful  City— The  Knights  of  St.  John— Their  Exploits— Sur- 
rendering to  the  Turks, 236 


XVI  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER     XVIII. 

SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  THE  SUN.— DRAGOMEN,  GUIDES, 
AND    COURIERS. 

A  Rough  Night  on  Shipboard— A  Sea-Sick  Turk— What  he  Said — Rum  and 
Petroleum — Meditations  on  Turkish  Hash — The  Camel,  his  Tricks  and 
Uses — A  Knowing  Brute— How  he  Shirks  a  Burden — George  Smith,  the 
Ass}Tian  Savan — Beyrout — Its  Antiquities  and  Wonders — Going  on  Shore 
— The  Dragoman  and  his  Office — Eastern  Guides  and  their  Character — 
Travelling  on  Horseback  in  Syria — The  Road  to  Damascus — An  Unex- 
pected Trouble — Paying  Fare  by  Weight — Disadvantages  of  a  Heavy 
"  Party  " — A  Trial  of  Wits — Waking  up  the  Judge — Telling  White  Lies — 
The  "  Doubter's  "  Predicament, 252 


CHAPTER     XIX. 

THE   GROVES    OF    LEBANON.— A    NIGHT    AMONG    THE 
ARABS. 

The  "  Sights  "  of  Beyrout — Excursion  to  Dog  River — An  Obstinate  Carriage- 
Owner — How  he  was  "  Euchred " — Moral  of  this  Incident — Off  for 
Damascus — Ascending  Mt.  Lebanon  —  An  Arab  Driver  —  Cultivating 
"  Kalil  ",  our  Jehu — The  Cedars  of  Lebanon — A  Grove  as  Old  as  Solomon's 
Temple— A  Wonderful  Old  City— The  Temple  of  the  Sun— Mystery  of 
Tadmor — Cyclopean  Masonry — Monstrous  Monoliths — Their  Dimensions — 
The  "Doubter's"  Doubts  and  their  Solution — Sleeping  in  an  Arab  House 
— What  we  Saw  There — Divans  as  Couches — A  Dangerous  Valley — The 
.Hobber's  Haunt, 264 


CHAPTER     XX. 

DAMASCUS.— THE  GARDEN  CITY  OF  THE  EAST. 

Dimitri  and   his  Hotel — Court-Yards  and  Fountain — How  People  Live  in 
Damascus — Parlors,  Bed-Rooms  and  Boudoirs — A  Bet  and  its   Decision — 


CONTENTS.  XVll 

The  "Doubter  and  his  Donkey" — The  Street  called  " Straight " — Bab- 
Shurky — Spots  Famous  in  History — Shaking  Hands  across  a  Street — Scene 
of  St.  Paul's  Conversion — The  Window  of  Escape — Tombs  of  Moham- 
med's Wives — The  "  Doubter  "  Figuring  on  Probabilities — An  Unexpected 
Upset — Visiting  the  Leper's  Hospital — A  Frightful  Spectacle — The  Great 
Mosque — View  from  the  Minaret — The  Bazaars  and  Curiosity  Shops — 
Making  a  Trade — A  Case  of  Fraud, 278 


CHAPTER     XXI. 

SYRIAN  LIFE.— DEALERS  IN  HUMAN  FLESH.— WE  TRY 
"ZE  LUXURIES  OF  ZE  BATH." 

In  the  Slave-Market — A  Dealer  in  Human  Flesh — A  Stealthy  Trade — Ex- 
amining Female  Slaves — Serfdom  in  Syria — Inbide  Views  of  a  Syrian 
Household — Jewish  Houses — An  Oriental  Song — Smoking  with  the  Ladies 
— Syrian  Customs — A  Famous  Arab  Chief— Visiting  Abd-el-Kader's  House 
— The  City  of  the  Caliphs — Taking  a  Bath — Mohammed  and  his  Trowsers 
— A  New  Species  of  Cushion — The  Bath-House — Disrobing — Securing  our 
Valuables — M  slem  Honesty — Sitting  Down  in  a  Hot  Place — Gustave's 
Misadventure — Undergoing  a  Shampoo — Rubbed  to  a  Jelly — The  Couch  of 
Repose — A  Delicious  Sensation — "All  ze  Luxuries,"  ....      290 


CHAPTER     XXII. 

TRAVELLING  IN  A  CARAVAN.— SIGHTS  ON  THE  WAY. 

Turning  our  Faces  Eastward — The  Land  of  the  Sun — Palmyra,  Bagdad,  and 
Babylon — The  Desert  in  Summer  and  Winter — A  Dangerous  Road — The 
Robbers  of  the  Wilderness — Ruins  in  the  Desert — A  City  of  Wonders — 
The  Haunts  of  the  Bedouins — Engaging  an  Escort — The  Start  for  Pal- 
myra— On  a  Dromedary's  Back — The  Environs  of  Damascus — A  Bed  on 
the  Sand — "  Every  One  to  his  Taste  " — A  Knavish  Gove-rnor — Winking  at 
Robbery — In  the  Desert — On  the  great  Caravan  Track — Caravansaries, 
What  Are  they  ? — The  High  Road  to  India— An  Arab  Fountain,  -  ■•  300 
2 


XVlil  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER      XXIII. 

TENT-LIFE   AMONG  THE   BEDOUINS.— THE    WARRIORS 
OF    THE    DESERT. 

Among  the  Bedouins — A  Genuine  Son  of  the  Desert — High-Toned  Robbers 
— A  Sample  of  Bedouin  Hospitality — Etiquette  in  an  Arab  Encampment — 
A  Case  of  Insult — Tent-Life  and  its  Freedom — A  Nation  of  Cavalry- War- 
riors— Bedouin  Dress,  Manners  and  Customs — Their  Horses  and  Weapons 
— A  Singular  Custom — A  Caricature  Steed  and  his  Rider — Arab  Scare- 
Crows — On  the  Road  to  Palmyra — A  Mountain  of  Ruirs — The  Grand 
Colonnade — The  Temple  of  the  Sun — A  Building  Half  a  Mile  in  Circum- 
ference— An  Earthquake,  and  What  It  Did — Tne  City  of  the  Caliphs,        -      307 


CHAPTER     XXIV. 

ADVENTURES  IN  THE  MOUNTAINS  OF  SYRIA. 

'Doing"  Syria — The  "  Short  "  and  the  "  Long  "  Route — How  to  Choose 
Them — Engaging  a  Dragoman — Farewell  to  Damascus — Preying  on  Trav- 
ellers— The  Wonderful  Rivers  of  Syria — Crossing  the  Desert — A  Picture 
of  Deso  ation — Scene  of  St.  Paul's  Conversion — A  Striking  Contrast — 
Ancient  Ruins  and  Modern  Hovels — A  Night  with  the  Bedouins — A  Hard 
Road  to  Travel — A  Glorious  View — The  "  Doubter's  "  Mischance — The 
Lizard  in  the  Boot — A  Ludicrous  Scene — Gustave's  New  Joke — Mollifying 
a  Native — The  Massacre  at  Hasbeiya — Treacherv  of  a  Turkish  Colonel — 
Scene  of  Christ's  Labors — In  the  Holy  Land, 318 


CHAPTER     XXV. 

"  FROM  DAN  TO  BEERSHEBA"— JOURNEYING  THROUGH 
THE   HOLY    LAND. 

Our  First  Morning  in  Palestine— Breaking  Camp  at  Banias— "  From  Dan  to 
Beersheba  "—Explanation  of  the   Phrase— The   Cup   of  the   Hills— The 


CONTENTS.  XIX 

Golden  Calf  of  Jeroboam — Story  of  Vishnu  and  his  Idol — An  Incident  and 
its  Moral — The  Battle-fields  of  Joshua — A  Singular  Species  of  Plough — 
The  "  Doubter  "  in  a  Quandary — Joseph's  Pit — The  Sea  of  Galilee — Fish- 
ing with  Poisoned  Bait — Capernaum  and  its  Ruins — Scene  of  Christ's 
Miracles — The  Birthplace  of  Mary  Magdalen — A  Horde  of  Beggars — A 
Pitiful  Spectacle — The  Robber's  Cave — Herod  and  his  Strategy — The  Jews 
of  Tiberias — A  Seedy  Crowd — Ruins  of  the  Ancient  City — The  Spot 
where  Christ  Fed  the  Multitude,  329 


CHAPTER     XXVI. 

IN    THE    HEART    OF    PALESTINE. 

Bathing  in  the  Sea  of  Galilee — Standing  on  Holy  Ground — How  the"  Doubt- 
er "  was  Unhorsed — A  Second  Absalom — Lunching  on  the  Summit  of 
Tabor — Saracenic  Vengeance — A  Reminiscence  of  the  Crusades — A  Mag- 
nificent Sight  —  Discussing  "Backsheesh"  with  the  Natives  —  The 
"Doubter"  as  a  Cashier — The  Grotto  of  the  Holy  Family— Mary's  House 
— The  House  of  Loretto — The  Story  of  the  Miracle — The  Monk  and  the 
"  Doubter  " — Dean  Stanley's  Explanation — Joseph's  Tool  Chest — The 
"  Doubter's  "  Demand — The  Witch  of  Endor  "  At  Home  " — Blood-Revenge 
— A  Pertinacious  Feud — Saul  and  the  Witch, 341 


CHAPTER      XXVII. 

THE   LAND   OF  THE  PHILISTINES.— SAMARIA  AND  ITS 
PEOPLE. 

The  City  of  Nain — "Spoiling  the  Egyptians" — Ruins  of  an  old  Philistine 
City — Curious  Strategy — The  Torches  in  Pitchers — Kleber  and  the  Turks — 
Ahab's  Palace — Tropical  Picture — A  Crusader's  Church — More  "  Back- 
sheesh " — The  Samaritans  of  To-day — The  Mount  of  Blessings  and  the 
Mount  of  Cursings — A  Despised  People — A  Strange  Religious  Belief — A 
Parchment  Thirty-five  Centuries  Old— Jacob's  Well — Its  Present  Appear- 
ance— The  Tomb  of  Joseph— The  Scene  of  Jacob's  Dream— The  Philis- 
tines' Raid, 355 


XX  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER     XXVIII. 

FROM  DAMASCUS  TO  JAFFA.-IXCIDENTS  OF  THE  TRIP. 

Once  More  in  Damascus— Taking  the  "  Short  Route"— Starting  for  Beyrout— 
The  Fountains  of  Damascus — Rain-Storm  in  the  Anti-Lebanon — Stora  and 
its  Model  Hotel — Poetical  Fancies — A  Compliment  to  Mine  Host — The 
"Doubter"  as  a  Rhvmist — Climbing  Mount  Lebanon — Tropic  Suns  and 
Arctic  Snows — View  from  the  Summit — A  Vision  of  Fairy-Land — Coming 
Down  on  the  Double-Quick — In  Sight  of  the  Mediterranean— Taking  Ship 
for  Jaffa — Sidon  to  a  Modern  Tourist — Tyre— Jaffa — A  Dangerous  Road- 
stead,      362 


CHAPTER     XXIX. 

ENGAGING  A  DRAGOMAN.— OUR  START  FOR  JERUSALEM. 

Views-ot  Jaffa — A  Queer-Looking  City — The  Oldest  Inhabited  Town  in  the 
World — The  Massacre  of  Jaffa — A  Stain  upon  the  Memory  of  Napoleon — 
A  Contract  with  a  Dragoman — A  Close  Margin — The  Value  of  Credentials 
An  Honest  Arab— Getting  into  Saddle — An  American  Colony — Their  Ger- 
man Successors — The  Fruits  of  the  Country — Generous  Conduct  of  the 
"Doubter" — On  the  Road  to  Jerusalem — A  Night  at  Ramleh — In  a  Rus- 
sian Convent — The  Gauntlet  of  Beggars — The  Pest  of  the  Road — Begging 
as  a  Fine  Art — The  "  Gate  of  the  Glen" — Among  the  Mountain  Passes — 
In  Sight  of  the  Holy  City, 370 


CHAPTER     XXX. 

THE  LIONS  OF  JERUSALEM.— THE  TEMPLE,  THE  SEPUL- 
CHRE, AND  THE  HOLY  OF  HOLIES. 

First  Sights  in  Jerusalem — Appearance  of  the  .Streets — What  the  "Doubter" 
Thought — A  Change  of  Opinion — The  Tower  of  David — The  Street  of 
David — Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre — Scenes  Around  It — Palace  of  the 


CONTENTS.  XXI 

Knights  of  St.  Juhn — Via  Dolorosa — Damascus  Gate — Walls  of  the  Holy 
City — Visiting  the  Temple — The  Ilarem  and  Mosque  of  Omar — Visiting 
the  Substructions — A  Tiiple  Veneration — Place  of  Wailing — The  Quarries 
— Remains  of  an  Ancienc  Bridge, 381 


CHAPTER      XXXI. 

AMONG  THE   MONKS. 

From  the  Gates  of  Jerusalem  to  Bethlehem — A  Touching  Incident — Tent- 
Life  at  Bethlehem — The    Milk   Grotto — Its    Miraculous  Character — The 

.  •"  Doubter"'  Expresses  Himself — The  Oldest  Christian  Church  in  the  World 
— Quarrelsome  Monks — A  Deadly  Fight — Remarkable  Conduct  of  the 
"  Doubter  " — Pious  Pilgrims — A  Christmas  Festival — A  Corpulent  and 
Hospitable  Monk — A  Wearisome  Ceremony — The  Monks  in  Costume — 
The  Women  of  Bethlehem — A  Bevy  of  Beauties — Under  Guard — Armenian 
Soldiers — Travelling  to  Saba — Among  the  Monks — A  Curious  Convent — 
Armed  against  the  Bedouins, 398 


CHAPTER     XXXII. 

AMONG  THE  BEDOUINS.— TRAVELLING  UNDER  ESCORT, 
AND  LIVING  IN  TENTS. 

Sleeping  under  Tents — A  Bedouin  Encampment — A  howl  for  "  Backsheesh" 
— A  Queer  Crowd — An  Illusion  Dispelled — An  Eccentric  "Rooster" — Our 
Guard — A  Little  bit  of  Humbug — "  Going  for"  the  "  Doubter" — A  Case  of 
Blackmail — On  Guard  against  Robbers — A  Protection  from  the  Sheik — 
Thievery  as  a  Profciion — Waters  without  Life — A  Curious  Bath — A 
Flood  of  Gold — The  "  Doubter"  in  a  Rain  Storm — A  Dangerous  Ford — 
A  Nocturnal  Mishap — An  Atrocious  Robbery — The  "  Doubter  "  once 
more  in  Trouble  —  A  Turkish  Escort  —  Falling  among  Thieves  —  The 
Judge's  Opinion  on  Shrinkage — The  "  Doubter"  in  the  Role  of  a  Mummy,       413 


Xxii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER     XXXIII. 

THE  HOLY  SEPULCHRE,  AND  SHRINE  OF  THE  CITY  OF 
DAVID. 

A  Snow-storm  in  Jerusalem— The  "  Doubter's  "  Opinion  of  Gum-Shoes— 
Kicked  by  a  Vicious  Horse— An  Obliging  Moslem— A  Guard  of  Turks- 
Bloodthirsty  Christians— An  Extraordinary  Shrine— The  Angel's  Seat— 
The  Quarrels  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  Monks— A  Spot  of  Marvels— The 
Soil  Pressed  by  the  Feet  of  Christ— Strange  Traditions— The  Discovery  of 
the  True  Cross— The  Spot  where  Peter  Denied  his  Lord— The  Scene  of  the 
Last  Supper— What  a  Wealthy  Jew  Did— The  Man  who  was  his  own 
Father— The  "  Good  Thief  "—Extracting  Sixpence  from  the  "  Doubter  "— 
A  Pertinacious  Guide— Trying  to  Elude  Pursuit— A  Claim  for  Damages- 
Loading  Up  with  Oranges— Talking  in  Four  Languages,    -        -        -        -      425 


CHAPTER     XXXIV. 

THE   LAND  OF  PHARAOH.— THROUGH  THE  EGYPTIAN 
DESERT. 

In  Sight  of  Egypt— A  Light-house  looming  through  the  Fog— On  the  Soil  of 
the  Pharaohs — An  Invasion  of  Boatmen — Scenes  in  the  Streets  of  Port 
Said— Encore  de  "  B.-icksheesh  "—The  Great  Suez  Canal— Negotiations 
with  a  Cobbler— A  Ludicrous  Situation— A  Bootless  Customer— Egyptian 
Jugglers— Going  through  the  Market— A  Disagreeable  Spectacle — A 
Pocket  Steamer— Drinking  to  Absent  Friends— On  the  "  Raging  Canawl  " 
— Sleeping  on  Deck— A  Sunrise  in  the  Desert— On  the  Summit  of  the 
Isthmus — An  Onslaught  by  Arab  Baggage-smashers,  ....      440 


CHAPTER     XXXV. 

IN  AND  AROUND  THE  CITY  OF  THE  CALIPHS. 

A  Costly  Breakfast— Ismailia— The  Palace  of  the  Khedive— On  an  Egyptian 
Railroad   Train— Rolling  Through  the  Desert— The  Delta   of  the   Nile, 


CONTENTS.  Xxiii 

What  Is  It  ? — The  Garden  of  Egypt — Cairo — The  Mighty  Pyramids — 
Life  at  an  Egyptian  Hotel — Sights  of  the  Capital — Cairo  of  To-Day — 
Occidental  Progress  and  Oriental  Conservatism — Burglaries  and  Other 
Modern  Improvements — Cosmopolitan  Costumes — A  Harem  Taking  an 
Airing  —A  Daring  Robbery — The  Battle-Field  of  the  Pyramids — Slaughter 
of  the  Mamelukes — Singular  Escape  of  Emir  Bey, 446 


CHAPTER     XXXVI. 

AN    INTERVIEW    WITH    THE  KHEDIVE.— LIFE  IN  THE  CITY 
OF  THE  NILE. 

The  Khedive,  who  is  he  ? — A  Hard-worked  Pasha — His  Personal  Habits — 
My  Interview  with  Him — Adventures  of  an  Old  Hat — Arranging  Ourselves 
for  a  Royal  Reception — An  Eastern  Monarch  in  a  European  Dress — An 
Unimpeachable  Costume — A  Fluent  Talker — Bedouin  Reporters — A  Car- 
riage from  the  Harem — Two  Pair  of  Bright  Eyes — Unveiling  the  Women — 
A  Talk  with  a  Couple  of  Pigmies — A  Nation  of  Dwarf- Warriors — My 
Impressions  of  the  Khedive, 4^7 


CHAPTER     XXXVII. 

STREET  LIFE  IN  CAIRO. 

Cairo,  Old  and  New— A  Visit  to  the  Ancient  City— The  Nilometer,  what  is 
it  ?  Measuring  the  Rise  of  the  Nile — Moses  in  the  Bulrushes — Tombs  of 
the  Caliphs— An  Egyptian  Funeral — Curious  Customs — "Crowding  the 
Mourners  " — Water-carriers  and  their  Ways — A  Noisy  Tobacco-vender — 
Glimpses  of  the  Arabian  Nights — Among  the  Bazaars — Street  Scenes  in 
Cairo — A  Cavalcade  of  Donkeys — Hoaxing  a  Donkey-boy — Amusing  Spec- 
tacle—Putting Up  a  Ride  at  Auction— An  Arab  Story — A  Nation  of  Liars, 
and  why  ?— Mosques  of  Cairo — Stones  from  the  Great  Pyramid,         -         -      468 


XXIV  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER     XXXVIII. 

THE  BAZAARS  OF  CAIRO.— EGYPTIAN  CURIOSITY  SHOPS. 

More  about  the  Bazaars — How  they  Sell  Goods  in  Cairo — Furniture,  Fleas, 
and  Filth — Trading  in  Pipe-stems  and  Coffee-pots — A  Queer  Collection  of 
Bric-a-Brac — Driving  Close  Bargains — A  Specimen  of  Yankee  Shrewdness 
— A  Miniature  Blacksmith  Shop— 'A  Cloud  of  Perfumes — Gems,  Guns,  and 
Damascus  Blades — An  Arabian  Auction — At  the  Egyptian  Opera — The 
Dancing  Girls  of  Cairo — The  Ladies  from  the  Harem — A  Scanty  Costume 
— The  Ballet  of  the  "  Prodigal  Son  " — The  Ladies  of  the  Opera  and  their 
Life, 478 


CHAPTER     XXXIX. 

ADVENTURES  WITH  A  DONKEY.— A  DAY  AT  THE  RACES. 

A  "  Syce  ;"  v,hat  is  he  ? — A  Man  with  a  Queer  Dress  and  L^rge  Calves — A 
Gorgeous  Turnout — An  Escort  of  Eunuchs — Veiled  Beauties — A  Flirtation 
and  it  Consequences — The  Tale  of  a  Dropped  Handkerchief — The  Donkey 
as  a  National  Beast — A  Tricky  Brute  and  an  Agile  Driver — An  Upset  in  the 
Mud — Astonishing  the  Natives — A  Specimen  of  Arabic  Wit — Going  to  the 
Races — The  Grand  Stand — A  Dromedary  Race — An  Aristocratic  Camel — 
The  Arrival  of  the  Khedive — Starting  Up  the  Dromedaries — Cutting  an 
Empress, 


CHAPTER     XL. 

THE  PASHA  AND  HIS  PRIESTS— EGYPTIAN  LANGUAGE  — 
SCHOOLS  AND  RELIGIOUS  CEREMONIES. 

Egypt  and  her  Relations  with  Turkey — The  Army  and  Navy — Egyptian  His- 
tory Boiled  Down — The  Reigning  Family — Wonderful  Relics— Mohammed 
Ali  as  a  Ruler — The  Pasha  and  the  Priests — Ordering  a  Wedding — Married 


CONTENTS.  XXV 

on  Short  Notice — Gratifying  the  Empress  Eugenie — An  Arab  School-room 
— A  College  with  Nine  Thousand  Students — A  Jaw-Breaking  Language — 
How  to  Indite  an  Epistle  in  Arabic — The  Caravan  to  Mecca — Going  on  a 
Pilgrimage — A  Horrible  Ceremony  —  Trampling  on  Dervishes  —  The 
"  Bride  of  the  Nile  " — Extraordinary  Customs,  490 


CHAPTER     XLI. 

THE    GREAT    PYRAMIDS— IX    THE    KINGS'    BURIAL 
CHAMBERS. 

A  Visit  to  the  great  Pyramids — A  Fellah  not  a  Fellow — Sakkiehs  and  Shadoofs 
— A  File  of  Camels  and  Donkeys — A  Striking  Spectacle — A  Horde  of  Arabs 
— Troublesome  Customers — The  great  Pyramid — How  we  Climbed  It — A 
Giant  Stairway — Dimensions  Extraordinary — The  Lost  Arts — Standing  on 
the  Summit — The  Judge's  Predicament — Arab  Cormorants — What  we  Saw 
from  the  Top  of  the  great  Pyramid — Wonderful  Contrasts — Performance 
of  an  Arabian  Acrobat — A  Race  down  the  Pyramid  Stairs — A  Perilous 
Descent — Penetrating  the  Interior— The  King's  Chamber — A  Dusty  Re- 
ceptacle of  Colfins — The  Spiiinx — A  Mysterious  Statue,      -        -        -        -       513 


CHAPTER     XLII. 

A  VOYAGE  UP  THE    NILE.— THE    MYSTERIES   OF  EGYPTIAN 
ART   AND   \YORSHIP. 

Up  the  Nile  in  a  Sail-Boat — Starting  for  the  Cataracts — Advantages  of  a 
Dragoman — A  Tricky  Lot — Frauds  on  Travellers — Our  Party — Rather 
Cosmopolitan — Getting  Ahead  of  Mr.  Cook — Our  Little  Game,  and  How 
it  W^orked — A  Bath  with  Spectators — Decidedly  Cool— Getting  Aground — 
A  Picturesque  Landscape — Last  Glimpse  of  the  Pyramids — Spending  Night 
on    Shore — Among  the   Ruins  of  Memphis— The   Wonders  of    Egyptian 


XXVi  CONTENTS. 

Art — What  Marriette  Bey  Discovered— Laying  Bare  a  Mysterious  Sepul- 
chre—Ancient Egyptian  Worship — Sacred  Bulls  and  Beetles — A  History 
Written  in  Stone— Bricks  Made  by  the  Israelites, 529 


CHAPTER     XLIII. 

LIFE    ON    THE    BANKS    OF    THE    NILE.— COPTS,    JUGGLERS, 
AND  THIEVES.— AMUSING  EXPERIENCES. 

Through  an  Arab  Village— Creating  a  Sensation— The  "Doubter"  Alarmed 
—The  Professor  Perpetrates  a  Hoax — The  Egyptian  Saratoga— An  Oriental 
Post-office— A  Queer  Town — Specimens  of  Ancient  Art— A  Wooden 
Statue  Three  Thousand  Years  Old— A  Coptic  Convent—"  Backsheesh, 
Howadji !  "—Carrying  Money  in  their  Mouths— Sturdy  Beggars— An  Expert 
Swimmer— The  Copts,  who  are  they  ?  Skilful  Swindlers— Sugar  Mills  on 
the  Banks  of  the  Nile— Egyptian  Jugglers— A  Snake-Charmer— Adroit 
Thieves — A  Melancholy  Experience  in  Donkey-riding,         ....       542 


CHAPTER     XLIV. 

ADVENTURES    IN    UPPER    EGYPT.— FUN  AND    FROLIC  WITH 

THE    NATIVES. 

Siout,  the  Capital  of  Upper  Egypt— The  Pasha's  Palace— An  Egyptian  Market 
Day — A  Swift  Boat— Going  the  rounds  on  a  Donkey— Town  Scenes— The 
Bazaars — Buying  a  Donkey — Tinkers,  Peddlers,  and  Cobblers  at  work — A 
Curiosity  Shop— Three  Card  Monte  in  the  Land  of  the  Pharaohs— Fighting 
the  Tiger— The  Prof  essor  takes  a  Hand — An  Ignominious  Defeat— A  Dole- 
ful Tale— A  River  where  the  Wind  is  always  Fair— The  Temple  and  Tablet 
of  Abydos — "  Backsheesh"  as  a  Medicine — Arab  Villages  in  an  Inundation 
— The  Garden  of  the  Valley— Fun  with  the  Natives— A  constant  resource 
foraPractical  Joker— Scrambling  for  Money — A  Severe  Joke,        -        -        -      554 


CONTENTS.  XXVli 


CHAPTER     XLV. 

THE  DANCING   GIRLS  OF  KENEH.— THE  TREASURES  OF 
DENDERAH. 

The  Dates  and  Dancing  Girls  of  Keneh — The  Alma  and  the  Ghawazee — The 
Dalilahs  of  Cairo — Going  to  the  Dance  Hall — An  Outlandish  Orchestra 
— The  Drapery  of  the  Dancers — The  Cairo  Wriggle — Curious  Posturing 
— A  Weird  Scene  -  Dress  and  Undress — Miracles  of  Motion — A  Fute  at 
the  German  Consulate — Models  for  Painters  and  Sculptors — Arab  and 
Nubian  Nymphs — The  Temple  of  Denderah — History  Hewn  in  Stone — 
Cleopatra  and  her  Portrait — The  Fatal  Asp — A  Bit  of  Doggerel — The 
Coins  of  Old  Egypt — The  Professor's  Bargain — Digging  for  Treasure — 
Arrival  at  Luxor — Taking  in  Strangers,        - 568 


CHAPTER      XLVI. 

LUXOR,  THE  CITY  OF  GIANTS  —AMONG  THE  MUMMIES 
OF  ANCIENT  THEBES. 

Luxor  on  the  Site  of  Ancient  Thebes — A  City  with  a  Hundred  Gates — En- 
joying a  Consul's  Hospitality — An  American  Citizen  of  African  Descent — 
A  Dignified  Rhinoceros — Karnak — A  City  of  Wonders — Promenading 
in  an  Avenue  of  Sphinxes — A  Gigantic  Temple — Monster  Obelisks — A 
Story  in  Stone — A  Statue  Weighing  Nine  Hundred  Tons — The  Sitting 
Colossi — A  Singing  Statue — Mysteries  of  Priestcraft — Lunching  in  the 
Tomb  of  Rameses — A  Wonderful  Treasure — How  They  Made  Mummies — 
A  Curious  Process — The  "Doubter"  and  the  Mummy  Sellers — The  Judge 
Comes  to  Grief, 585 


CHAPTER     XLVII. 

A  VISIT  TO  A  HAREM  IN  UPPER  EGYPT.— LIFE  AMONG 
THE  NUBIANS. 

A  Visit  to  a  Harem — Among  the  Daughters  of  the  Nile — How  they  Looked 
and  What  was  Done — Painted  Eyelids — The  Use  of   Henna — A  Minute 


XXViii  CONTENTS. 

Inspection  of  Garments— Mustapha  Agar  "At  Home"— Arab  Astonish- 
ment—A Dinner  a  rArabe—Frngcxs,  vs.  Forks— An  Array  of  Queer  Dishes 
— Novel  Refreshment— Dancing  Girls— Truck  and  Decker  at  Luxor — 
More  "Ghawazee,"  Pipes  and  Coffee- "A  Love  of  a  Donkey"— Song 
of  Arabs— Arab  Cruelty— A  Nation  of  Stoics— Endurance  of  Pain — Among 
the  Nubians— Ostriches,  Arrows  and  Battle-Axes— A  Nubian  Dress — A 
Very  Small  Dressmaker's  Bill— A  Scanty  Wardrobe,  -        -        -        -      600 


CHAPTER     XLVIII. 

CAMEL-RIDING.- ADVENTURES  AMONG  THE  NUBIANS. 

How  they  made  the  Royal  Coffins— Splitting  Blocks  of  Stones  with  Wooden 
Wedges— An  Ingenious  Device— A  Ride  on  a  Camel— A  Beas-t  indulging 
in  Familiarities— Lunching  on  Trowsers— Mounting  in  the  Saddle— Curious. 
Sensation — An  Interesting  Brute — A  Camel  Solo — Sitting  in  a  Dish — 
Camel-Riding  in  a  Gymnastic  Point  of  View— Secondary  Effects— Nubian 
Ferry-Boats— P.  T.  and  his  Paint-Pot— Labors  of  an  Enthusiastic  Amer- 
ican—Mr. Tucker  on  his  Travels— "A  Human  Donkey" — Visifng  the 
Cataract — Paving  Toll  to  a  Sheik— The  Professor  and  his  Camel — Croco- 
diles of  the  Nile — Starting  Back  to  Cairo, 612 


CHAPTER     XLIX. 

IN  THE    SLAVE    COUNTRY.— SIR    SAMUEL  W.    BAKER'S 
EXPEDITION. 

The  Egyptian  Slave  Trade — How  carried  on — An  Army  of  Kidnappers — A 
Slave  King— Frightful  Scenes— Sir  Samuel  Baker's  Expedition— A 
Shrewd  Move— Breech-loaders  as  Civilizing  Agents- A  Missionary  Outfit 
—Starting  for  the  Slave  Country— Reluctant  Allies— The  "  Forty  Thieves" 
— Running  against  a  Snag — The  Sacred  Egyptian  Flower — The  Lotos- 
Eaters,  Who  were  They  ?— The  New  York  Lotophagi— The  Papyrus  or 
Vegetable  Pnper—Capturing  a  Cargo  of  Slaves— The  Plague  of  Flies—A 
few  more  "likely  Niggers"— Marr>ing  by  Wholesale— A  Fight  with  the 
Natives— The  Result  of  the  Expedition, 623 


CONTENTS.  XXIX 

CHAPTER      L. 

SUNSET  IN  THE  ORIENT.— VOYAGING  DOWN  THE  NILE. 

An  Egyptian  Sunset — A  Gorgeous  Spectacle — The  Sky  that  bends  above  the 
Nile  —  Singular  Atmospheric  Phenomena — A  Picture  for  an  Artist — 
Shadows  from  History — Napoleon  and  the  Pyramids— Our  Voyage  Back 
to  Cairo — Scenes  by  the  Way — "Cook's  Tourists" — An  Amusing  Sight — 
Night-Fall  oa  the  Nile — A  Flame  of  Rockets — "  What  does  it  Mean  ?" — 
The  Marriage  of  the  Khedive's  Son — Feminine  Disappointment — Jumping 
Ashore — Aboard  of  Donkeys — Gustave's  Somersault — Practical  Sympathy 
— In  the  Pasha's  Garden— A  Magnificent  Sight— The  Wedding  Pageant- 
Elbowing  an  Arab  Crowd— A  Pyrotechnic  Shower, 637 


CHAPTER    LT. 

THE  WEDDING  OF  THE  KHEDIVE'S  SON.— ENJOYING  A 
MONARCH'S    HOSPITALITY. 

High  Jinks  in  the  Egyptian  Capital — Dancing  Horses— Arabian  Blooded 
Steeds— Treading  the  "  Light  Fantastic  Toe  " — Bedouin  Riders — The  Mys- 
terious Cage — Egyptian  Prima  Donnas — A  Spice  of  the  Arabian  Nights — 
A  Silken  Palace — Headquarters  of  the  Khedive — Thoughtless  Intruders 
upon  Royalty — A  Glimpse  of  the  Princes  Royal — The  Heir  of  the  Throne 
of  Egypt — His  Appearance,  Dress,  and  Character — A  Cordial  Invitation — 
Partaking  of  the  Khedive's  Hospitality — A  Turkish  Cumcd) — A  Free 
Lunch — End  of  the  Festival, 644 


CHAPTER     LII. 

WOMEN  AMONG    THE   MOHAMMEDANS.— LIFE   IN  THE 
HAREM. 

Polygamy  Among  the  Turks  and  Arabs— A  Full-Stocked  Harem— Unveiling 
theWomen— Romantic  Adventure— A  Brief  Flirtation— The  "Light  of  the 


XXX  CONTENTS. 

Harem  "—Love  at  First  Sight— How  Egyptian  Women  Dress— Some  Hints 
to  the  Ladies — Wearing  Trowsers— Robes,  Caftans,  and  Teaked  Shoes- 
Rainbow  Colors— How  they  Dress  their  Hair— Crowned  with  Coins — A 
Walking  Jewelry  Shop— The  Pretty  Egyptienne  Orange  Girl— Street 
Costume— Paris  Fashions  in  the  Khedive's  Harem — Beauties  Riding 
Donkeys  Man  Fashion — How  they  Go  Shopping — Animated  Bales  of  Dry 
Goods— Black  Eyes  in  a  Bundle  of  Silks— Marriage  Brokers— How  they 
Dispose  of  their  Daughters  in  the  East — A  Turkish  Courtship — A  Donkey 
Driver  Gives  an  Opinion— The  Wedding  and  the  Honeymoon — Divorces 
in  Egypt — An  Easy  Process — Many-Wived  Men, 650 


CHAPTER     LI  1 1. 

WINTER  ON  THE  NILE.— THE  KHAMSEEN  AND  ITS  EFFECTS. 
—BEDOUIN  LIFE. 

Winter  in  Egypt — A  soft  and  balmy  air — A  Rainstorm  on  the  Nile — An  Asy- 
lum for  Invalids — The  Month  of  Flowers — The  "Khamseen,"  What  is 
it? — A  blast  as  from  a  Furnace — Singular  effects  of  the  South  Wind — A 
Sun  like  Copper  and  a  Sky  like  Brass — A  cloud  of  Sand — Eating  Dirt — 
Fleeing  from  the  Khamseen — How  the  Laboring  Classes  Live — Hungry 
but  not  Cold — Oriental  Houses — An  Excursion  to  Heliopolis — Habits  of 
the  Bedouins — A  Fastidious  People — Life  in  a  Bedouin  Encampment — 
Among  the  Obelisks — How  they  were  brought  Five  Hundred  Miles — The 
Madonna-Tree, 667 


CHAPTER     LIV. 


LAST  DAYS  IN   EGYPT. 


The  Last  Stroll  around  the  Mooskee — Talking  to  the  Donkey-Boys  and  Drago- 
men— A  Queer  Lot — A  Pertinacious  Customer — The  Judge's  Expedient— 
A  Little  Humbug — Rich  American  Tourists  "in  a  Horn"— The  Drago- 


CONTENTS. 


XXXI 


man's  Salutation  "Sing  Sing  !" — Getting  Rid  of  a  Nuisance — Buying  Keep- 
sakes— Out  of  the  Desert  into  a  Garden — Curiosities  for  Farmers — A 
Mohammedan  Festival— Curious  Sights — Snake  Charmers— How  they  do 
it— Music-Loving  Reptiles— On  an  Egyptian  Railroad— Pompey's  Pillar— 
A  Ludicrous  Accident — Alexandria,  its  Sights  and  Scenes— Climbing 
Pompey's  Pillar— A  Daring  Sailor — An  Arab  Swindle— Going  on  Board 
the  Steamer — Farewell  to  Egypt, 


678 


BACKSHEESH. 


"B  AC  K  S  H  E  E  S  H." 


CHAPTER     I. 


STEAMER-LIFE   ON  THE  ATLANTIC. 

Leaving  Home — Our  Pilgrimage  Begun — Sights  and  Scenes  on  Deck — "Life 
on  the  Ocean  Wave  " — Out  at  Sea — The  Traveller's  Little  World — Feeling 
Queer  Inside  ! — Delights  of  Sea-sickness — Reminiscences  of  a  Jolly  Old  Boy — 
What  became  of  the  Judge — Bringing  up  his  Liver  ! — Too  Big  for  his  Berth — 
Sleeping  in  a  Second-hand  Coffin — A  Race  with  a  Lemon — The  Leg  of  Mut- 
ton Dance — Eccentric  Conduct  of  a  Boiled  Turkey — Too  Much  Sauce  ! — "Dress- 
ing "  the  Judge's  Trowsers — Alone  at  Sea — A  Funny  Conspiracy — Fate  of  a 
Timid  Man — Confidence  Betrayed— The  Young  Man  from  the  Country — His 
Wisdom  and  his  Woes — Drinking  Petroleum — The  Judge  Turns  Joker — Who 
Owns  the  Ocean  Steamers. 

NEVER  have  I  sailed  out  of  New- York  harbor  on  a  finer  day 
than  when,  in  the  spring  of   1873,  I  started  on  that  pilgrim- 
age of  which  this  book  is  to  be  the  record. 

It  was  late  in  April,  the  sky  was  clear,  and  the  atmosphere 
had  that  balmy  softness  which  we  find  in  the  tropics  much  oftcner 
than  in  more  northern  latitudes.  Looking  up  the  Hudson  and 
down  the  widening  estuary  toward  Staten  Island,  one  could  see  a 
delicate  haze  that  skirted  the  horizon  and  faintly  mellowed  the 
lines  that  otherwise  might  have  presented  a  suggestion  of  harsh- 
3 


34 


"  MY    NATIVE    LAND,    GOOD-BYE  "  ! 


ness.  The  picturesque  life  of  the  harbor  was  at  its  fullest 
activity  ;  ocean  and  river  steamers  were  moving  here  and  there, 
and  white-winged  ships  coming  home  from  long  voyages  or 
going  out  to  battle  with  the  winds  and  waves,  were  in  the  grasp 
of  powerful  tugs  that  fumed  and  fretted  as  they  ploughed  the 
waters  with  their  helpless  charges.  Thousands  of  smaller  craft 
dotted  and  stippled  the  beautiful  bay  which  is  the  pride  and  glory 
of  the  commercial  metropolis  of  America  ;  and  the  forest  of 
masts  hanging  over  the  wharves  at  the  city's  edge  spread  its 
leafless  limbs  in  liberal  profusion. 


STEAMER   DAY. 

There  was  the  usual  crowd  of  friends  to  bid  farewell  to  oui 
passengers ;  and  the  parting  cheer,  as  we  steamed  out  from  our 
dock,  rang  in  our  ears  long  after  the  spire  of  Trinity  had  disap- 
peared, and  the  protruding  front  of  Castle  Garden  had  been  lost 
in  the  distance.  There  was  only  the  gentlest  breeze  to  ruffle 
the  water  as  we  pushed  oceanward  and  caught  sight  of  the  blue 
line  of  sea  and  sky  that  formed  the  eastern  horizon.  We  watched 
the  sun  declining  in  the  west,  bringing  the  Highlands  of 
Neversink  into  bold  relief ;  our  steady  progress  left  the  land  each 
moment  more  and  more  indistinct,  till,  at  last,  day  and  land  faded 


A    STORM    AT    SEA. 


35 


away  together.  We  were  out  on  the  ocean,  and  the  world  was 
become  to  us  small  indeed. 

An  Atlantic  trip  is  not  considered  in  these  days  a  very  serious 
affair.  There  are  persons  who  persist  in  speaking  of  the  ocean 
as  a  ferry,  with  no  more  terror  than  the  North  or  East  River. 
It  may  be  a  good  joke  to  call  it  a  ferry,  but  it  is  rather  a  solemn 
joke  when  you  have  been  at  sea  a  couple  of  weeks  and  have 
experienced  a  few  gales. 

The  day  we  sailed  the  water  was  as  smooth  as  a  mill-pond,  and 
it  remained  so  for  about  thirty-six  hours.  In  the  room  next  to 
me  there  was  a  judge  from  New  Jersey  ;  a  jolly,  good-natured 
old  boy,  whose  face  was  a  pleasure  to  contemplate.  The  first 
day  out,  he  told  me  he  was  agreeably  surprised  with  the 
ocean,  and  that  he  should  have  brought  his  wife  along  if  he  had 
supposed  it  would  be  so  comfortable.  "  People  do  exaggerate 
so,"  said  he,  "  that  you  never  know  what  to  believe.  They  have 
told  me  that  the  ocean  was  ter- 
ribly rough,  and  that  I  should 
be  very  sick  ;  but  I  see  it  was 
all  a  mistake  Why,  I  have 
seen  it  worse  than  this  going 
from  New  York  to  Staten  Isl- 
and." 

I  assured  the  Judge  that 
some  of  the  passengers  might 
have  been  lying  to  him,  and 
that  the  ocean  was  very  much 
slandered.  Next  day  it  came 
on  to  blow,  and  by  midnight 
we  were  tossing  as  if  a  lot  of 

^      11  ^     ^1  1-  •         •  THE  judge's   first  DAY  AT  SEA. 

giants  had  put  the  ship  in  a  •" 

blanket  and  were  having  some  first-class  fun.  She  rocked  and 
pitched  magnificently,  and  a  liberal  portion  of  the  passengers 
were  laid  out  with  inal-du-mer. 

And  the  Judge  !  I  paid  him  a  visit  when  the  storm  was  at  its 
worst,  and  his  condition  was  such  as  to  rouse  in  my  breast  min- 
gled sentiments  of  pleasure  and  sorrow.  He  was  lying  on  the 
sofa,  and  his  right  hand  convulsively  clutched  a  basin  into  which 
he  was  pouring  the  contents  of  his  stomach. 


36 


DELIGHTS    OF     SEASICKNESS. 


"  What  a  fool  a  man  is  to  come  to  sea,"  he  gasped  in  the  in- 
tervals of  his  wretchedness.  "  I  was  an  idiot  not  to  have  gone 
travelling  in  Pennsylvania,  instead  of  coming  out  here.  I  would 
give  a  thousand  dollars  to  be  safe  back  in  New  York." 

I  endeavored  to  console  him,  but  he  would  not  be  comforted. 
While  I  poured  soothing  words  into  his  ear,  and  brandy  down 
his  throat,  the  ship  gave  an  extra  lurch  that  brought  a  fresh  dis- 
charge from  the  Judge's  mouth.     Something  dark  and  solid  fell 

into  the  basin,  and  as  the 
Judge  contemplated  it,  his 
face  assumed  an  expression 
of  horror. 

"  I  will  be  hanged,"  said 
he,  "  if  I  have  not  thrown  up 
a  piece  of  my  liver ;  just  look 
at  it  ;  everything  inside  of 
me  will  be  up  next.  In  fif- 
teen minutes  you  can  look 
for  my  toe-nails." 

He  sank  back  fainting,  but 
brightened  up  a  little  when 
I  told  him  that  what  he  sup- 
posed to  be  his  liver  was 
nothing  more  than  a  piece  of  corned  beef  which  he  swallowed 
at  dinner  and  his  stomach  had  failed  to  digest.  He  grew  better 
next  day,  but  persisted  in  declaring  the  ocean  a  humbug,  and 
said  that  when  he  once  got  back,  nothing  should  tempt  him  to 
come  abroad  again. 

People  are  differently  affected  by  the  ocean.  Some  are  never 
sea-sick,  while  others  can  never  go  on  the  water  without  being 
laid  up.  I  have  known  persons  who  kept  their  rooms  an  entire 
voyage  ;  they  went  below  when  leaving  land  on  one  side,  and  did 
not  come  out  again  till  it  was  sighted  on  the  other.  Women  are 
the  weaker  vessels,  when  it  comes  to  an  ocean  experience,  how- 
ever strong  they  may  be  in  domestic  griefs  and  family  jars.  In 
sea-sickness,  they  fall  much  sooner  than  men,  and  are  slower  to 
recover  their  appetites.  Children  recover  more  quickly  than 
adults,  and  sometimes  they  are  well  and  running  about  long  be- 


THE  judge's    second   DAY   AT   SEA. 


A    PRESCRIPTION    FOR    VOYAGERS.  37 

fore  their  parents  are  able  to  get  away,  with  a  cup  of  tea  or  a 
cracker. 

To  those  who  contemplate  going  to  sea,  I  have  a  piece  of  ad- 
vice to  offer  that  may  save  them  the  pangs  of  the  marine  malady. 

The  night  before  you  are  to  sail,  take  a  blue  pill — ten  grains — 
just  before  going  to  bed,  and  when  you  get  up  in  the  morning 
take,  the  first  thing,  a  dose  of  citrate  of  magnesia.  Then  eat 
your  breakfast  and  go  on  board,  and  I  will  wager  four  to  one, 
that  you  will  not  be  sea-sick  a  moment,  though  the  water  may 
be  as  rough  as  an  Arkansas  traveller's  manners. 

The  above  prescription  was  given  to  me  several  years  ago,  and 
I  have  rigidly  followed  it  every  time  I  have  gone  to  sea  since  I 
received  it.  It  has  saved  me  from  sea-sickness,  and  it  has  been 
of  equal  value  to  many  others,  to  whom  I  have  given  it.  I  have 
published  it  several  times  for  the  benefit  of  the  human  race,  and 
I  think  it  worth  giving  again. 

Sea-sickness  is  a  dreadful  feeling,  and  anything  that  can  be 
expected  to  prevent  it  is  worth  trying.  I  remember  the  first 
time  I  was  sea- sick,  I  wanted  to  be  thrown  overboard,  and  didn't 
care  what  became  of  me.  If  the  ship  had  sunk  beneath  me  I 
should  have  been  glad  instead  of  sorry  ;  and  if  the  captain  had 
threatened  to  tie  me  up  and  give  me  forty  lashes,  I  should  not 
have  made  the  slightest  opposition  to  the  execution  of  his 
threat.  If  the  Koh-i-noor  diamond  had  been  lying  ten  yards 
from  me,  and  had  been  offered  me  on  condition  that  I  should 
pick  it  up,  I  couldn't  have  stirred  an  inch  to  get  it.  The  death 
of  a  maiden  aunt,  from  whom  I  had  great  expectations,  would 
have  failed  to  elate  me,  and  the  refusal  of  my  hand  by  an  heiress 
to  a  million  would  have  caused  me  no  regret.  Nothing  can  bring 
perfect  despair  so  readily  as  sea-sickness,  and  make  its  victim 
ready  and  willing  to  die.  Somebody  has  said  that  in  the  first 
hour  of  his  sea-sickness  he  feared  he  should  die  ;  but  in  tlie 
second  hour  he  was  afraid  he  should  not  ;  and  that  is  pretty 
nearly  the  experience  of  every  sufferer. 

You  have  heard  of  the  man  who  wanted  to  thrash  the  fellow 
who  wrote  "  A  Life  on  the  Ocean  Wave."  I  think  there  were 
several  on  board  our  ship  who  agreed  with  him,  and  would  bear 
a  hand  to  assist  him.  Somebody  has  written — and  his  head  was 
not  unlevel — 


38  ACROBATIC    PERFORMANCES    BETWEEN    DECKS. 

"  The  praises  of  the  Ocean  grand, 
'Tis  very  well  to  sing  on  land  ; 
'Tis  very  fine  to  hear  them  carolled 
By  Thomas  Campbell  or  Childe  Harold — 
But  sad  indeed  to  see  that  Ocean, 
From  east  to  west,  in  wild  commotion." 

Though  I  did  not  suffer  from  sea-sickness,  I  did  not  escape 
considerable  annoyance  and  discomfort.  Anybody  who  knows 
me  can  testify  that  I  am  not  a  dwarf,  that  I  stand  over  six  feet, 
and  have  a  proportionate  breadth  of  beam.  My  berth  was  about 
an  inch  shorter  than  its  occupant,  and  when  I  tried  to  He  fiat  on 
my  back  I  took  up  all  the  width  of  it.  I  couldn't  straighten  out, 
because  the  berth  was  too  short  ;  I  couldn't  lie  on  my  side 
through  fear  of  being  rocked  out  ;  and  I  couldn't  lie  face  down, 
for  the  same  reason  that  I  couldn't  lie  face  up.  Taken  for  all  in 
all,  the  room  was  the  most  uncomfortable  I  ever  slept  in  on  board 
ship.  When  I  went  into  my  "little  bed,"  I  felt  as  though  I  was 
in  a  second-hand  cofifin,  originally  made  for  a  smaller  man,  and  I 
dreamed  of  this  state  of  things  so  often  that  I  considered  the 
night  had  gone  wrong  without  such  a  slumbering  fancy.  The 
rolling  of  the  ship  made  it  awkward  to  put  on  my  clothes  and 
perform  other  toilet  duties  ;  and  if  I  went  through  preparations 
for  breakfast  without  a  tumble  or  two,  I  considered  myself  lucky. 

One  morning  the  steward  brought  me  a  lemon.  It  is  a  very 
good  practice  at  sea  to  swallow  the  juice  of  a  lemon  half  an  hour 
before  breakfast,  in  order  to  clear  the  stomach  and  remove  any 
tendencies  to  biliousness.  He  put  the  lemon  on  my  sofa,  and  I 
crawled  out  of  bed  just  as  he  retreated  and  closed  the  door. 

Well  ;  the  ship  made  a  lurch  and  sent  me  head  foremost  upon 
the  sofa,  as  though  I  had  been  shot  from  a  mortar.  With  some 
difficulty  I  picked  myself  up,  and  braced  long  enough  to  get  a 
tumbler  and  make  ready  to  squeeze  the  lemon.  Just  as  I  reached 
for  it  the  ship  went  the  other  way,  and  the  lemon  rolled  from  the 
sofa  and  under  the  berth.  I  went  on  hands  and  knees  in  a  hum- 
ble attitude  to  reach  for  it;  over  went  the  ship  just  as  I  extended 
my  arm  under  the  berth ;  my  body  followed  my  arm,  and  my  legs 
followed  my  body,  and  it  was  no  easy  matter  to  get  up  again. 
While  I  was  getting  to  rights,  the  old  craft  lurched  the  other 


A    RACE    WITH    A    LEMON.  39 

way,  and  my  lemon  shot  across  the  floor  like  a  rat  pursued  by  a 
terrier,  and  took  up  a  hiding-place  again  under  the  sofa. 

Then  I  went  for  it  with  the  same  result  as  before.  Just  as  I 
put  my  hand  upon  it  there  was  a  movement  in  the  lemon-market, 
and  the  article  I  was  pursu- 
ing traversed  the  floor  and 
sought  the  farthest  corner 
under  the  berth  once  more. 

About  five  minutes  we 
kept  up  that  circus  ;  some- 
times I  was  ahead,  and  some- 
times the  lemon,  and  both 
were  pretty  well  exhausted 
by  the  time  the  race  was 
over.  At  last  I  took  him  on 
the   fly,    and  made   a  short  i^i-  i-'^'-t" 

stop  ;  lost  my  balance  and  went  down  in  a  corner  among  my 
clothes.  Then  I  gathered  myself  together  and  managed  to  cut 
the  lemon  open  and  to  squeeze  it.  I  lost  half  the  juice  in  a 
lurch  of  the  ship,  just  as  I  raised  the  glass  to  my  lips ;  and  in  my 
hurry  to  save  what  was  left  I  swallowed  seeds  enough  to  start  a 
respectable  lemon  orchard.  I  think  an  artist  could  have  made  a 
series  of  interesting  sketches  had  he  witnessed  the  race  between 
the  lemon  and  me. 

Dinner  has  a  good  deal  of  fear  in  it  if  the  ship  happens  to  be 
rolling  nicely.  Racks  are  put  on  the  tables  to  keep  things  from 
falling  off,  and  sometimes  the  rocking  is  so  bad  that  even  the 
racks  are  not  altogether  satisfactory.  In  front  of  you  is  a  rack 
just  wide  enough  to  hold  your  plate,  and,  when  you  are  taking 
soup,  the  edge  of  it  is  just  even  with  the  rack.  If  the  ship  makes 
up  her  mind  she  can  tip  your  plate  so  that  the  soup  will  flow  out 
into  your  lap,  and  after  doing  that  she  will  tilt  the  other  way  and 
leave  the  side  next  to  you  quite  dry.  Your  tumbler  will  assert 
the  correctness  of  its  name  in  more  ways  than  one,  unless  it  is 
very  firmly  placed  and  wedged  in  where  it  cannot  fetch  away. 

The  best  way  at  such  times  is  to  hold  your  soup-plate  in  your 
hand  and  fasten  your  tumbler  in  the  rack  where  the  glasses  are 
kept.     Sometimes  a  joint  of  meat  or  a  boiled  turkey  will  leap 


40 


KILLING   TIME    WHILE    CONVALESCENT. 


from  its  plate  and  go  off  the  table  as  easily  as  a  live  turkey  could 
make  the  same  movement.  My  friend,  the  Judge,  caught  a  tur- 
key in  his  lap  one  day,  and  his  trowsers  were  so  covered  with 
oyster  sauce  that  they  might  have  been  served  up  without  seri- 
ous trouble.  A  New  York  matron  was  likewise  honored  with 
a  visit  of  a  leg  of  mutton,  and  I  narrowly  escaped  from  a  dish  of 
blanc  mange  that  seemed  determined  to  pay  me  a  complimentary 
call.  The  desk  where  I  used  to  write  had  a  remarkable  tendency 
to  change  its  angle  at  every  moment,  and  if  my  old  desk  in  New 

York  were  to  conduct  itself  thus, 
I  should  ask  what  it  had  been 
drinking. 

Day  after  day  we  steamed 
along,  sometimes  getting  a  little 
assistance  from  our  sails,  but 
more  frequently  depending  upon 
steam  alone.  Out  of  New  York 
we  were  accompanied  by  a  Ger- 
man steamer,  but  we  soon  lost 
sight  of  her  in  consequence  of 
a  divergence  in  our  courses. 
Almost  every  day  we  saw  steam- 
ers and  sailing-ships,  and  some- 
times we  had  three  or  four  of 
THE  "JUDGE."  them  in  sight.    We  were  directly 

on  the  track  between  the  great  ports  of  England  and  America, 
and  the  wonder  is,  not  that  we  saw  so  many  vessels,  but  that  so 
few  of  them  came  in  sight.  Our  engines  were  not  stopped  after 
we  left  NewYork  till  we  arrived  at  Oueenstown,  where  our  mails 
and  some  of  our  passengers  were  landed. 

Time  hangs  heavily  on  one's  hands  at  sea.  The  first  day  out 
you  are  uneasy,  if  you  are  not  sea-sick ;  you  try  to  read  and  you 
can't ;  you  sit  in  one  place  awhile,  then  in  another,  then  in  an- 
other ;  and  then  you  go  somewhere  else.  You  get  over  a  page 
at  a  time  ;  you  shut  and  open  your  book  a  dozen  times  in  an 
hour,  and  are  as  discontented  as  a  weaning  calf.  You  sit  down 
to  games  of  cards,  but  don't  feel  like  playing ;  you  go  forward 
and  aft,  and  aft  and  forward,  and  really  don't  know  what  to  do 


WITS    AND    WAGS    ON    SHIPBOAKu.  4I 

with  yourself.  If  the  weather  is  fair  you  go  on  deck,  and  then 
you  go  below  ;  and  then  on  deck  again.  You  wish  yourself  on 
shore,  and  you  fall  to  counting  the  hours  that  must  elapse  before 
the  voyage  will  end.  You  don't  feel  like  making  the  acquaint- 
ance of  anybody,  and  nobody  wants  to  make  yours  ;  and  so  the 
day  goes  on  till  you  turn  into  your  bunk  and  try  to  sleep.  In 
the  morning  you  rise  feeling  about  as  amiable  as  a  bear  with  a 
sore  head,  though  your  nerves  are  more  quiet  than  they  were. 
Then  you  begin  to  make  acquaintances,  and  in  a  couple  of  days 
the  passengers  know  each  other  pretty  fairly  ;  enough,  at  any 
rate,  for  all  practical  purposes. 

By  the  fourth  day  you  have  the  peculiarities  of  everybody 
down  to  a  dot ;  and  about  this  time  the  spirit  of  mischief  prevails. 
There  are  sure  to  be  some  waggish  passengers  ready  for  any  kind 
of  fun,  and  sometimes  they  are  rather  merciless  in  it.  If  there 
is  a  timid  man  on  board  they  talk  accident  to  him,  and  if  there  is 
a  credulous  man  on  board  they  fill  him  with  yarns  of  the  most 
frightful  character.  There  was  a  youth  on  board  from  one  of  the 
eastern  states,  and  he  was  constantly  in  fear  lest  the  ship  should 
sink.  Two  of  the  wags  talked  of  accident  till  his  hair  stood  on 
end  and  he  dared  not  go  to  bed  at  night.  At  the  table  where  the 
Judge  and  I  were  seated,  there  were  two  superannuated  English- 
men who  had  been  to  New-York  to  visit  some  friends,  and 
were  going  home  without  seeing  anything  in  America  outside 
Manhattan  Island.  I  fear  they  had  strange  opinions  of  our  coun- 
try before  they  got  back. 

They  listened  to  the  talk,  and  were  evidently  taking  notes  of 
what  they  heard.  Their  information  may  be  known  by  the  fol- 
lowing sample. 

While  we  were  at  lunch  one  day  the  conversation  happened  to 
turn  on  petroleum.  The  Judge  addressing  one  of  the  jokers  who 
was  known  as  "the  Major,"  said  very  gravely  :  "  That  was  a  singu- 
lar practice  during  the  war,  giving  each  man  a  pint  of  crude  pe- 
troleum to  drink  before  going  into  battle." 

"  Yes  ;"  the  Major  replied,  "  but  it  paid  very  well  at  first,  as  the 
men  fought  like  tigers  in  consequence.  But  we  had  to  abandon 
it  before  the  end  of  the  war." 

"  Really  now,  you  don't  mean  that  your  soldiers  drank  that 
abominable  stuff .''"  said  one  of  the  astonished  Britons. 


42  A    CASE    OF    SPONTANEOUS    COMBUSTION. 

"  Oh,  yes,"  said  the  Judge,  his  solemnity  increasing,  "  they 
grew  very  fond  of  it,  and  many  of  them  deserted  when  they  were 
deprived  of  it." 

"  Why  was  it  given  up  .^"  asked  Briton  number  two. 

"  It  was  found,"  the  Major  explained,  "  that  many  of  the  men 
died  of  spontaneous  combustion  in  consequence  of  drinking  this 
stuff.  In  the  case  of  smokers  it  was  specially  dangerous,  as  a 
man's  breath  might  take  fire  while  he  was  lighting  his  pipe. 
One  of  our  best  regiments — the  49th  Buffaloes — was  almost  an- 
nihilated by  petroleum.  It  was  during  the  '  Seven  Days'  Fight ' 
near  Richmond.  They  had  been  in  action  continuously,  and,  for 
more  than  a  week,  quadruple  rations  of  petroleum  were  served  to 
them,  so  that  they  were  saturated  with  it.  On  the  last  day  of  the 
battle,  as  they  were  drawn  up  in  line  for  inspection,  one  of  the 
men  struck  a  match  just  for  fun.  His  breath  caught,  and  so  did 
that  of  the  man  on  each  side  of  him.  In  half  a  mniute  the  flame 
ran  along  the  line,  and  in  less  time  than  it  takes  me  to  tell  it, 
half  the  regiment  were  on  fire.  Some  had  presence  of  mind  to 
fall  on  their  faces  when  they  saw  the  flash,  and  these  were  the 
only  ones  that  were  saved." 

"  Dear  me  !  how  strange  !" 

"  Yes ;"  the  Major  added,  "  and  sometimes  prisoners  in  the 
hands  of  the  enemy  were  set  on  fire  by  the  inhuman  officers 
who  wished  to  witness  their  terrible  sufferings.  We  found  the 
use  of  petroleum  as  a  beverage  was  in  various  ways  an  injury  to 
the  army,  so  we  gave  it  up." 

This  wonderful  story  was  heard  with  apparent  confidence  by 
our  fellow  travellers,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  it  was  told  round 
British  firesides  in  perfect  good  faith.  The  Judge  and  his  friends 
talked  of  snow-storms  a  hundred  feet  deep,  of  potatoes  in  South 
Carolina  as  large  as  flour-barrels,  of  oysters  in  Texas  that  sing 
and  play  the  piano,  and  of  a  horse  in  Cincinnati  that  could  swear 
and  chew  tobacco.  Wonderful  adventures  in  all  parts  of  the 
land  were  minutely  described,  and  if  the  voyage  had  lasted  a 
week  longer,  and  the  stories  could  all  be  collected  and  published, 
they  could  give  Baron  Munchausen  several  points  and  beat  him. 
The  wags  described  bloody  encounters  of  men  in  the  West,  and 
left  the  impression  that  anywhere  beyond  the  Hudson  River  a 


VICTIMIZING    A    PASSENGER.  43 

person  who  by  accident  brushes  against  the  elbow  of  another  is 
shot  down  immediately. 

In  the  same  spirit  of  mischief  they  tortured  the  timid  youth 
till  he  did  not  know  what  he  was  about.  He  was  not  so  good  a 
subject  as  one  with  whom  I  crossed  the  Atlantic  some  years 
before  ;  but  he  did  very  well.  The  principal  joke  played  upon 
him  was  to  talk  of  accidents  when  he  was  at  hand. 

The  other  man  of  whom  I  speak — the  one  of  several  years 
ago — was  the  victim  of  a  regular  conspiracy.  Some  of  the  pas- 
sengers arranged  to  talk  in  his  presence  of  nothing  but  accidents ; 
no  matter  what  topic  they  were  discussing,  when  he  came  near 
they  shifted  to  accidents  at  once.  When  they  ran  out  of  true 
stories  they  resorted  to  fiction,  and  the  fiction  was  worse  by  far 
than  the  fact. 

He — the  victim — used  to  remain  up  until  sent  down  below  by 
the  officers,  and  he  generally  slept  with  a  life  preserver  beside 
him.  One  day  when  some  boxes  and  cans  were  being  thrown 
overboard,  his  tormentors  got  up  a  story  that  the  barometer  had 
been  falling  about  an  inch  an  hour,  and  that  a  terrible  gale  was 
expected.  The  Captain  feared  that  we  could  not  live  through  it, 
and  had  thrown  out  these  sealed  boxes,  containing  duplicates  of 
the  government  dispatches  and  other  important  papers,  in  the 
hope  that  some  more  fortunate  vessel  might  find  them,  in  case 
we  were  destroyed. 

Jack,  as  we  called  him,  was  in  the  greatest  terror.  He  went 
below,  and  remained  shut  in  his  cabin  for  the  rest  of  the  day  and 
evening.  As  no  gale  came,  it  was  explained  that  we  passed  it 
and  just  avoided  its  track,  and  they  pointed  out  a  line  of  dark 
clouds  on  the  horizon  as  the  probable  course  of  the  gale.  He 
was  satisfied  and  became  more  cheerful,  though  his  general  ter- 
ror did  not  cease. 

When  we  approached  the  end  of  our  voyage  it  was  night,  and 
it  became  necessary  to  throw  up  a  rocket.  The  officer  then  in 
charge  of  the  deck  said  to  the  jokers  : 

"  If  you  want  some  fun  with  your  friend,  get  him  forward  near 
the  smoke-stack,  and  as  close  as  possible  to  the  steam-pipe. 
When  the  engine  stops  they  will  instantly  let  off  steam,  and  just 
as  it  starts  I  will  send  up  a  couple  of  rockets." 


44 


THE    VICISSITUDES    OF    "JACK." 


They  got  Jack  forward  and  engaged  him  in  conversation.  His 
back  was  about  two  feet  from  the  pipe,  and  the  same  distance 
from  the  rockets.  The  steam  was  shut  off  from  the  engine  and 
turned  into  the  pipe  with  a  tremendous  roar.  At  the  same  in- 
stant the  rockets  let  go  with  a  tremendous  crash  that  anybody 
who  has  stood  near  a  flying  rocket  can  appreciate,  and  the  crowd 
gave  a  yell  that  would  have  excited  the  envy  of  a  band  of  Indians. 

Jack  made  one  bound  aft,  and  his  friends  had  to  run  after  him 

lest  he  would  jump  over- 


board. He  went  into  his 
cabin  and  didnot  come  out 
for  an  hour  or  more.  But 
when  he  did  reappear,  he 
was  freshly  alarmed.  The 
steamer  had  been  stopped 
for  a  sounding,  and  that 
noisy  piece  of  machinery 
— the  donkey  engine — was 
put  in  operation  to  haul 
in  the  lead-line.  All  was 
still,  until  suddenly  the 
'lonkey  engine  started 
with  its  clatter.  Jack  was 
dozing  at  the  time,  and 
the  noise  roused  him.  He 
knew  that  something  was 
wrong,  and  with  nothing 
on  but  his  shirt  he  darted 
to  the  deck.  It  took 
some  time  to  quiet  him 
and  persuade  him  to  go 
where  his  scanty  costume 
would  be  more  approriate. 


A  PRACTICAL    JOKE. 


Necessarily  the  space  on  an  ocean-steamer  is  very  much  re- 
stricted. The  ordinary  sleeping-rooms  are  about  six  feet  square, 
or  at  most  six  feet  by  seven  ;  and  in  this  space  two,  or  some- 
times three  or  four,  persons  are  expected  to  spend  their  nights 
and  keep  their  superfluous  garments  and  light  baggage.     When 


HOW    TO    "GO    IT    ALONE, 


45 


there  are  few -passengers  each  can  have  a  room  to  himself  ;  but 
when  there  is  anything  like  a  "rush,"  there  must  be  more  or  less 
doubling  up.  Steamship  agents  will  give  you  a  room  to  yourself 
on  payment  of  half  an  extra  fare,  and  many  persons  avail  them- 
selves of  the  opportunity.  Others  who  desire  seclusion,  but 
suffer  from  shallowness  of  purse,  prefer  to  make  friends  with  the 
purser  or  chief  steward,  and  thereby  secure  what  they  wish  for. 
No  general  rule  can  be  laid  down  for  this,  and  I  leave  each  man 
to  act  for  himself. 

Once,  when  I  crossed  the  Atlantic,  I  exulted  in  finding  myself 
alone  in  a  room  well  situated  in  the  middle  of  the  ship.  While 
I  was  rejoicing  about  the  matter,  I  was  thrown  into  consterna- 
tion by  the  steward,  who  entered  and  said  : 

"  There  is  a  young  man  in  the  room  close  by  the  screw,  and  he 
doesn't  like  it,  and  is  going  to  ask  the  captain  to  put  him  in  with 
you." 

"  William,"  said  I  solemnly — for  his  name  was  William — "  Wil- 
liam, you  know  how  delighted  I  should  be  to  have  him  here. 
But,  William,  do  you  know  that  I  have  fits,  nightmare,  delirium 
tremens,  small-pox  and  several  other  maladies,  and  that  I  am  the 
most  ill-natured  man  on  board  the  ship  .-'  And  do  you  know, 
William,  that  I  have  half  a  sovereign  for  you  if  that  adolescent 
gentleman  stays  away  .''  " 

William  smiled,  said  nothing,  stuck  his  tongue  in  his  cheek 
and  departed.  Ten  minutes  later  he  returned,  bringing  a  broad 
grin  on  his  face  as  a  prefix  to  the  information  : 

"  The  young  feller  will  stay  where  he  is,  sir,  and  I  hope  you'll 
remember  the  half-sov'  at  the  end  of  the  voyage." 

What  William  said  about  me  to  the  occupant  of  the  room  near 
the  screw,  I  am  unable  to  say  ;  but  I  observed  that  the  youth 
shunned  my  society,  and  consequently  fear  that  he  had  formed 
an  unfavorable  opinion.  But  I  gave  the  promised  money  to  the 
steward  "  satis  peur  et  sans  repj'oche." 

The  dangers  of  the  Atlantic  voyage  are  of  little  moment,  and 
no  more  to  be  dreaded  than  those  of  a  journey  by  rail  from  New 
York  to  San  Francisco.  I  refer  to  the  unavoidable  dangers,  such 
as  gales,  collisions  with  wrecks  and  similar  accidents  that  human 
foresight  cannot  prevent.    Accidents  like  the  loss  of  the  Atlantic 


46  A    STORY    OF    ACCIDENTS. 

and  the  Schiller,  and  similar  disasters,  are  to  be  attributed  to  the 
bad  management,  either  of  the  company,  or  of  the  ship's  officers, 
or  of  both,  and  do  not  come  under  the  head  of  unavoidable  cala- 
mities. With  good  management  on  all  sides,  and  proper  inspec- 
tion of  ships,  a  journey  across  the  ocean  is  as  safe  as  a  rail 
journey  of  the  same  length,  and  in  some  respects  more  so.  I 
have  been  assured  by  men  familiar  with  the  history  of  steam 
navigation  that  the  casualties  are  not  more  numerous  in  propor- 
tion to  the  numbers  travelling,  than  on  American  railways. 

The  reason  why  an  accident  on  the  water  is  more  dreadful 
than  on  land  is  twofold.  In  the  first  place,  the  number  of 
persons  killed  or  wounded  in  a  railway  accident  is  always  a  small 
percentage  of  those  on  the  train.  Take  Carr's  Rock,  Angola, 
Richmond  Switch,  or  any  other  terrible  disaster  by  rail,  and  the 
number  killed  was  a  great  deal  smaller  than  the  number  of  those 
who  escaped  unhurt.  But  a  marine  accident  may  destroy  the 
life  of  every  one  on  board  the  ship.  This  has  been  the  case  on 
several  occasions.  The  steamers  President,  City  of  Glasgow, 
Pacific,  City  of  Boston,  Tempest,  United  Kingdom,  Ismailia,  and 
Trojan  were  lost  at  sea,  and  never  heard  from.  Two  steamers 
on  the  American,  and  one,  I  believe,  on  the  English  coast,  were 
wrecked  with  all  on  board  ;  and  one  steamer  was  wrecked  near 
Moville,  from  which  only  a  single  man  escaped.  Most  of  these 
steamers  were  lost  on  their  eastward  trips,  when  their  passenger 
lists  were  much  smaller  than  if  they  had  been  going  westward. 

Another  thing  that  makes  an  ocean  accident  terrible,  is  the 
difficulty  of  escape.  If  you  are  overturned  in  a  railway  car,  you 
fall  upon  solid  earth,  but  in  an  accident  on  the  ocean,  you  have 
nothing  but  water  to  stand  upon — a  very  poor  support  indeed. 
The  boats  of  a  steamship  are  not  sufficient  to  hold  her  pas- 
sengers and  crew,  as  a  general  thing,  and  in  case  of  an  accident 
on  a  westward  trip,  when  the  steerage  is  crowded  with  emigrants, 
the  loss  of  life  may  be  enormous.  On  board  the  steamer  which 
carried  me  over  the  Atlantic  there  were  eight  boats,  with  a  capa- 
city altogether  of  not  more  than  four  hundred  persons,  under 
the  most  favorable  circumstances,  supposing  all  of  them  launched 
and  the  weather  fine.  On  her  westward  trips  she  frequently 
carries  twelve  hundred  steerage  passengers,  and  her  crew  and 


AMERICAN    VERSUS    FOREIGN    LINES. 


47 


cabin  passenger  list  would  probably  bring  the  complement  up  to 
very  nearly  fourteen  hundred.  In  case  the  steamer  sinks  at  sea, 
there  would  be  a  thousand  persons  who  could  not  possibly  find 
places  in  the  boats !  There  is  not  a  ship  carrying  emigrants 
that  has  boat  room  enough  for  half  her  passengers  on  a  west- 
ward trip,  and  I  doubt  if  any  of  them  could  even  carry  away  a 
fourth  of  their  complement.  When  your  ship  goes  down  at  sea 
you  may  consider  yourself  fortunate  if  you  do  not  go  down  with 
her. 

It  is  a  burning  shame  that  nearly  all  the  steam  lines  crossing 
the  Atlantic,  are  in  the  hands  of  other  nationalities  than  ours. 
It  is  not  generally  known  that  two  of  the  English  lines  are 
mainly  owned  in  New  York,  only  enough  of  the  stock  being 
held  abroad  to  enable  the  ships  to  sail  under  the  British  flag. 
The  reason  of  this  is  that  our  laws  discriminate  against  our  own 
people,  and  in  favor  of  other  nations  ;  the  taxes  and  other  restric- 
tions are  such,  that  an  American  line  cannot  be  run  so  as  to 
compete  successfully  with  a  foreign  one,  and  consequently, 
American  capital  seeking  investment  in  steamships  for  the 
Atlantic  service,  is  very  likely  to  go  under  a  foreign  flag  !  Isn't 
this  pitiful  } 

There  are  occasional  spasmodic  efforts  for  the  establish- 
ment of  an  American  line  between  New  York  and  Liverpool, 
but  they  have  never  lasted  long.  As  I  write  these  pages  there 
is  an  American  line  from  Philadelphia  that  seems  to  promise 
well.  It  has  good  ships  and  is  said  to  be  well  equipped  and 
managed.  I  sincerely  hope  it  will  have  a  long  and  successful 
career,  but  if  it  does  it  will  be  different  from  any  of  the  numer- 
ous "lines"  that  have  had  their  headquarters  in  New  York. 


CHAPTER     II. 


SCENES  IN  VIENNA— DOWN  THE  DANUBE. 

On  English  Ground — The  Road  to  the  East — Life  in  the  Austrian  Capital — Fun 
and  Festivity — Visit  to  the  Big  Beer-Garden — Effects  of  Champagne — Ani- 
mated Conversation — How  Twenty  Thousand  Dollars  were  Spent — The  Man 
with  the  Torn  Vest — Headaches  at  a  Discount — Yankees  in  a  Row — A  Pugna- 
cious Russian — "  Quits  "  but  not  Satisfied — Challenging  an  American — The  Fash- 
ionable World — Down  the  Danube — Scenes  f  n  the  River — How  Austrian  Cigars 
are  made — An  Imperial  Tobacco  Dealer — The  Battle  of  Wagram — Castle  of 
Presburg — We  Enter  Hungary — An  Evening  in  a  Wine  Cellar — Want  of  a  Lit- 
tle  Soap — Night  Scene  on  the  Danube. 

AS  this  book  is  intended  to  describe  a  journey  in  the  Orient, 
we  will  leave  our  steamer  at  Liverpool,  and  with  one  bound 
plant  our  feet  in  Vienna. 

This  is  the  last  great  city  on  the  road  to  the  East ;  she  has 
twice  enjoyed  the  honors  of  a  Turkish  siege,  and  is  the  capital 
of  a  country  which  fronts  upon  the  land  of  the  Moslem.  So 
much  has  been  written  about  Vienna  that  I  shall  refrain  from 
giving  a  description  of  the  city  and  its  people,  and  shall  content 
myself  with  remarking  that  I  found  it,  next  to  Paris,  the  most 
attractive  place  on  the  Continent. 

I  have  been  several  times  in  Vienna,  and  at  different  seasons 
of  the  year,  but  have  never  found  it  otherwise  than  gay  and 
attractive.  My  longest  visit  there  was  in  the  memorable  year 
of  the  Exposition,  when  Vienna  was  crowded  with  people  from 
all  parts  of  the  globe,  and  the  mingling  of  nationalities  made 
many  curious  scenes. 

(48) 


THE    BEER-GARDENS    OF    VIENNA.  49 

The  city  government  of  Vienna  endeavored  to  make  the  place 
as  attractive  as  possible,  and  did  a  great  many  things  to  make 
the  time  pass  pleasantly.  There  were  balls  and  parties  innumer- 
able ;  music  and  beer  halls  were  open  by  the  hundred  ;  and  every 
few  days  there  was  a  special  entertainment  to  the  strangers  con- 
nected with  the  Exposition.  The  first  of  these  affairs  that  I 
attended  was  given  one  evening  in  the  Stadt  Park.  The  Stadt 
Park  would  be  in  English  the  City  Park,  Public  Gardens,  or  any 
thing  else  you  might  choose  to  call  a  large  park  or  garden  be- 
longing to  the  city,  and  used  for  festivals  on  a  grand  scale,  and 
for  a  general  place  of  recreation  for  the  public.  Near  the 
entrance  is  a  large  building  somewhat  resembling  a  palace  on  a 
small  scale  ;  when  I  first  saw  it  I  asked  a  friend  what  it  was, 
and  was  greatly  disappointed  at  his  answer.  I  supposed  it  was 
an  art  gallery,  imperial  pavilion,  or  department  bureau,  and  was 
naturally  somewhat  surprised  to  learn  that  it  was  a  beer  saloon 
and  restaurant.  You  can  understand  that  a  festival  which  illu- 
minated these  grounds,  and  wound  up  the  illumination  with  a 
display  of  fireworks,  was  a  thing  not  to  be  sneezed  at.  It  cost  the 
city  of  Vienna  about  twenty  thousand  dollars  to  give  this  "blow- 
out," and  they  had  the  worth  of  the  money.  I  do  not  think  any 
of  it  went  to  the  Aldermen  and  Burgomaster,  as  is  sometimes 
the  case  in  America,  when  cities  get  up  grand  displays  in  honor 
of  distinguished  guests. 

Not  only  did  the  city  furnish  lights,  fireworks,  and  music,  but 
it  furnished  an  excellent  supper  washed  down  with  champagne, 
white  and  red  wines,  beer,  tea,  coffee,  and — in  a  few  instances — 
with  water.  The  effect  of  these  things  was  interesting  to  behold. 
The  international  juries  contained  representatives  from  nearly 
all  the  civilized  nations  of  the  globe,  and  when  the  champagne 
had  warmed  their  tongues  there  was  a  chattering  that  would  have 
done  honor  to  the  cage  of  monkeys  that  used  to  ornament  the 
Jardin  Des  Plantes  in  Paris  before  the  war  sent  the  friends  of  Dr. 
Darwin  to  the  cooking  pot.  In  the  beginning  of  the  festival  all 
were  trying  to  talk  in  German  or  in  French,  but  as  the  cham- 
pagne did  its  work  and  heads  began  to  whirl,  the  language  of  the 
country  was  forgotten,  and  everybody  was  rattling  away  in  his 
own  tongue.  Here  would  be  a  group  in  which  were  half  a  dozen 
4 


50 


SCIENCE    AND    CHAMPAGNE. 


men,  of  as  many  nationalities,  and  each  would  be  talking  in  his 
own  language  as  though  his  salvation  depended  on  his  getting 
through  as  many  words  as  possible  in  a  given  time.  All  would 
be  jabbering  away  for  dear  life,  and  all  at  once  ;  and  close  by 
them,  and  all  around  them,  would  be  groups  of  the  same  sort, 
fraternizing  in  the  same  way. 

At  every  step  you  might  find  an  Englishman,  a  Frenchman, 
or  a  German  endeavoring  to  explain  to  an  Italian,  a  Spaniard,  or 
a  Chinese,  the  relations  between  the  solar  plexus,  and  the, atomic 
theory  as  applied   to   the   construction    of   cart  wheels.      The 


FRATERNIZING. 


amount  of  science  evolved  on  that  evening  was  frightful  to  con- 
template, as  nearly  every  man  was  science-sharp  in  some  way  or 
other,  and  your  genuine  man  of  genius  is  pretty  certain  to  be- 
come more  and  more  talkative  the  more  he  gets  drunk.  There 
was  an  immense  amount  of  international  fraternizing ;  and  if  all  the 
<rood  words  and  wishes  uttered  on  that  occasion  and  moistened 
with  champagne  could  have  effect,  there  would  never  be  any 
more  wars  among  nations,  and  the  various  governments  of  the 
earth  might  disband  their  armies  and  convert  their  artillery  into 


THE  CUSTOMS  OF  THE  COUNTRY. 


51 


-    \ 


locomotives  and  dirt-carts.  Not  only  were  the  international 
jurors  there,  but  a  good  many  other  loafers,  such  as  city  officials, 
attaches  of  the  government  bureaus,  newspaper  men,  and  diplo- 
mates.  The  Emperor  was  not  there,  but  some  of  the  Archdukes 
were,  and  there  were  lots  of  Austrians,  with  any  number  of  dec- 
orations hanging  on  the  front  of  their  coats.  You  couldn't  move 
without  hitting  a  dignitary  in  official  costume,  or  a  fellow  so  full 
of  dignity  in  plain  clothes  that  you  would  recognize  him  at  once 
as  a  heavy  swell;  and  the  mingling  of  the  nationalities  as  the 
evening  wore  on  was  funny  to  behold. 

Germans  and  Russians,       f-^  V^)  ^^^VV^  vv^r  ^ 


and  others  of  the  conti- 
nental people  were  hug- 
ging each  other,  and  you 
had  the  spectacle  —  curi- 
ous and  novel  to  an  Amer- 
ican— of  bearded  men  kiss- 
ing and  re-kissing  like 
couples  of  school- girls. 
They  swore  eternal  friend- 
ship, and  pledged  each 
other  till  their  hearts  and 
heads  were  too  full  and 
their  tongues  too  thick  for 
utterance.      The    waiters 


ETERNAL    FRIENDSHIP. 


got  drunk,  owing  to  the  numbers  of  "  heel-taps"  and  the  general 
abundance  and  freedom  of  the  champagne.  They  got  into  rows 
among  themselves  and  with  some  of  the  guests,  and  altogether 
there  were  half  a  dozen  scrimmages  of  greater  or  less  magnitude. 
Most  of  them  were  fortunately  confined  to  words,  and  were  soon 
quelled,  but  there  were  two  rows  in  which  there  was  some  push- 
ing, but  no  actual  blows. 

One  American  had  his  vest  torn  in  a  scuffle  with  a  waiter.  He 
went  next  morning  to  the  consulate,  bearing  the  torn  garment  as 
proof  of  the  affray ;  but  as  he  could  not  tell  how  the  affair  occurred, 
and  could  not  remember  the  name  and  face  of  the  waiter  who 
assaulted  him,  the  Consul  declined  to  make  the  quarrel  a  national 
one.     It  was  long  after  midnight  when  the  last  of  the  convives 


52 


A    VIEW    OF    THE    GREAT    EXPOSITION. 


went  home ;  and  when  the  sun  rose  next  morning,  Vienna  con- 
tained an  unwonted  number  of  heads  swollen  to  unusual  size  and 
bursting   with  the   pain  of   too   much   drink   thenight    before. 

That  Sommerfest  will  be 


remembered  by  all  who 
were  there,  and  sadly  by 
more  than  one  respect- 
able head  of  a  family. 

Another  night  there 
was  a  festival  in  the 
grounds  around  the  Expo- 
sition building.  I  started 
for  that  place  leisurely 
about  five  o'clock,  under 
agreement  to  meet  a  friend 
near  the  west  portal,  and 
mounted  to  the  deck  of 
an  omnibus  which  bore 
large  letters.       Man  pro- 


PROOF    OF  THE  AFFRAY. 


the  words  "  West  Portal "  in  very 
poses  and  the  police  dispose.  The  police  turned  us  off  at 
one  of  the  bridges,  and  would  not  allow  us  to  go  anywhere 
near  the  western  entrance,  but  sent  us  away  in  the  direction 
of  the  south  portal.  Then  another  lot  of  police  stopped  us 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  gate,  so  that  my  ride  to  the  Ex- 
position was  more  in  theory  than  in  practice. 

Vehicles  of  every  description  were  depositing  people  at  the 
gates,  and  thousands  were  going  thither  on  foot.  Many  had 
come  expecting  to  spend  an  hour  in  the  building  before  the  be- 
ginning of  the  fete,  but  in  this  they  were  disappointed,  as  the 
doors  were  closed  at  six  o'clock,  instead  of  seven,  the  usual  hour. 
The  crowd  kept  coming,  and  coming ;  you  couldn't  find  a  vacant 
chair  at  any  of  the  restaurants  and  beer  halls,  and  you  found  it  no 
easy  matter  to  walk  about.  I  think  that  by  eight  o'clock  there 
wece  not  less  than  a  hundred  thousand  people  in  the  grounds, 
and  they  kept  coming  as  late  as  nine  o'clock.  As  2,  fete,  strictly 
speaking,  the  affair  did  not  amount  to  much.  Half  a  dozen  bands 
of  music  were  playing  in  various  parts  of  the  grounds,  and  at  the  spot 
known  as  the  Mozart  Platz,  there  was  an  Austrian  singing-society 


THE    DOME    BY    GAS-LIGHT.  53 

numbering  about  five  hundred  voices.  Then  there  were  electric 
lights,  nearly  a  dozen  of  them,  that  made  the  spot  brilliant,  and 
when  all  their  rays  were  thrown  on  the  great  dome  they  brought 
it  out  into  bold  relief. 

"  How  magnificent  that  dome  appears,"  said  an  American  near 
me  to  his  friend  ;  "  you  can  see  every  part  of  it  distinctly." 

"  That  may  be,"  said  the  other  ;  "  but  you  could  see  it  a  great 
deal  better  in  the  daytime  without  paying  a  cent." 

Bless  his  practical  mind !  I  never  thought  of  that! 

The  light  had  a  strange  appearance  when  thrown  on  the  trees 
and  buildings  and  fountains,  and  the  scenje  reminded  me  of  rep- 
resentations of  fairyland,  such  as  we  see  in  the  Black  Crook,  or 
in  the  panorama  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress.  If  some  of  my  theatri- 
cal friends  could  have  been  there,  I  think  they  would  have  found 
some  new  hints  for  stage  effects.  The  jewels  in  the  great  crown 
that  surmounts  the  dome  were  sparkling  very  brilliantly,  and  I 
imagine  that  more  than  one  individual  in  the  crowd  thought  that 
the  crown  would  be  a  nice  thing  to  plunder.  The  effect  of  the 
lights  when  turned  from  you  was  very  pleasing,  but  when  you 
had  to  look  one  of  them  in  the  face  it  became  a  nuisance.  They 
had  a  way  of  changing  the  colors  of  the  lights  that  reflected  upon 
the  fountains  so  that  they  became  by  turns  red,  blue,  green,  yel- 
low, and  white,  eliciting  a  great  many  murmurs  of  applause. 

By  half  past  nine  the  people  began  to  move  away,  and  there  was 
a  jam  on  all  the  streets  that  led  through  the  Prater  up  to  the 
Praterstern.  Vehicles  could  only  proceed  at  a  walk,  and  even 
that  pace  could  not  always  be  maintained.  I  was  on  the  top  of 
an  omnibus,  and  rarely  have  I  seen  so  large  a  crowd  as  the  one  I 
looked  upon  from  my  post  of  observation.  The  streets  from  the 
Praterstern  spread  out  like  the  arms  of  a  fan,  or  more  like  the 
spokes  of  a  wheel,  and  on  all  these  streets  people  were  about  as 
much  crowded  as  they  could  be,  and  there  was  a  much  larger 
sprinkling  of  women  than  you  see  in  a  crowd  in  America.  Vehi- 
cles were  moving  as  best  they  could,  and  despite  the  rush  and 
the  jam  everybody  was  good  naturcd. 

Nearly  up  to  midnight  the  crowd  surged  along  from  the  Prater, 
and  evidently  people  were  in  no  hurry  to  go  to  bed.  All  Vienna 
seemed  to  be  out  of  doors,  and  the  beer-halls  were  doing  an  enor- 
mous business.     I  would  not  ask  for  a  better  fortune  than  to  have 


54 


FREE    AND    EASY    MANNERS. 


a  dollar  for  each  glass  of  beer  drank  in  Vienna  in  the  twenty- 
four  hours  ending  the  next  morning  at  sunrise.  There  were 
probably  half  a  million  people  drinking  beer  on  that  festive  day, 
at  an  average  of  ten  glasses  each. 

As  an  illustration  of  European  customs,  I  will  relate  an  inci- 
dent of  my  stay  in  Vienna  : 

One  day,  three  American  ladies  were  in  the  Exposition  build- 
ing, and  attracted  the  attention  of  a  couple  of  strangers,  one  an 
Austrian  officer,  and  the  other  a  Russian  of  considerable  distinc- 
tion in  his  own  home.  The  freedom  of  their  manners,  so  natural  to 
American  women,  was  misinterpreted,  and  the  gentlemen  made 
themselves  obnoxious  by  following  them  wherever  they  went,  and, 
finally,  by  speaking  to  them,  and  offering  to  be  their  escort. 

Though  repulsed,  they  followed  ;  and,  finally,  near  the  Ro- 
tunda, the  ladies  met  a  gentleman  who  was  husband  to  one  of 
them  and  brother  to  the  other.     They  told  him  the  story,  and 


AVENGING    AN    INSULT. 


pointed  out  their  troublesome  followers,  who  were  standing  a 
little  distance  away.  The  American  walked  to  where  the  pair 
stood,  and  after  a  few  words  he  coolly  knocked  the  Russian 
down.     The  latter  made  no  resistance,  but  pulled  out  his  card- 


ALMOST    A    DUEL. 


55 


case  and  demandea  the  address  of  his  assailant,  which  was  given. 

Next  day  there  came  a  challenge  to  fight ;  the  Russian  wanted 
satisfaction  for  the  insult  he  had  suffered,  and  was  determined 
upon  a  duel.  The  American  was  inclined  to  accommodate  him, 
but  his  friends  interfered,  and  one  of  them  went  to  the  Russian, 
with  the  assurance  that  the  American  would  have  nothing  to  do 
with  him. 

"  But  I  must  have  satisfaction,"  demanded  the  Russian.  "  I 
have  been  grossly  insulted,  and  must  have  satisfaction." 

"  I  don't  see  it,"  was  the  American's  reply.  "  You  are  even 
with  him  and  can  cry  quits.  You  insulted  his  wife  and  he 
knocked  you  down.     Can  anything  be  more  equal  than  that  .''" 

"  But  a  blow !  a  blow,  is  a  terrible  insult  to  me,  the  Count 

and  I  must  have  a  duel.     Speaking  to  a  man's  wife  is 

nothing.  He  had  no 
business  to  strike  me  ; 
he  could  challenge  me 
to  fight,  but  strike  me, 
never  !" 

"  Well,  anyhow,  it 
seems  he  did,  and  if  you 
were  to  insult  my  wife  as 
you  did  his,  I  would 
knock  you  down  too. 
We  do  that  way  in  Amer- 
ica, and  when  you  in. 
suit  an  American  wo- 
man you  must  be  treat- 
ed in  American  style. 
My  friend  shall  not  fight 
a  duel,  and  if  you  go 
near  him  you  will  get 
knocked  down  again,  or  possibly  get  a  revolver-shot  through  you. 
Good-day." 

The  Russian  would  not  let  the  matter  rest  there.  He  tried  to 
bring  it  before  the  Russian  Ambassador,  and  through  him,  before 
the  United  States  Minister  ;  and  there  was  a  prospect  that  the  affair 
would  cause  some  trouble.     But  the  American's  friends  refused 


MUST   HAVE  A   DUEL. 


^6  BEAUTY    OF    THE    AUSTRIAN    LADIES. 

to  let  him  receive  a  challenge  or  take  any  part  in  the  discussion, 
so  that  the  Russian  was  forced  to  the  alternative  of  having  his 
adversary  arrested  for  striking  him,  or  of  letting  him  alone.  As 
arresting  him  would  not  heal  his  wounded  honor,  he  did  not  do 
it,  and  the  affair  has  now,  I  think,  blown  over.  It  is  a  dangerous 
business  to  strike  a  man  in  Vienna,  and,  had  the  authorities 
chosen,  they  could  have  made  things  lively  for  our  pugilistic 
friend.  Only  physical  assaults  are  held  to  be  an  excuse  for  a 
blow. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  nonsense  afloat  about  the  beauty  of 
the  Viennese  women.  I  looked  for  it,  but  could  not  find  it.  I 
do  not  mean  to  say  that  there  are  no  handsome  women  here,  as 
I  saw  a  goodly  number  of  pretty  faces,  but  they  are  not  more 
numerous  than  in  other  cities.  I  have  read  about  the  great 
beauty  of  the  women,  and  know  several  men  who  have  raved 
about  Vienna  as  the  centre  of  the  earth  in  this  respect,  but  I 
cannot  understand  it.  Among  the  women  that  are  seen  in  pub- 
lic places,  such  as  the  music  gardens,  restaurants,  and  cafes, 
there  are  no  more  pretty  faces  than  you  would  see  in  Berlin  or 
Paris,  and  the  chances  are  more  than  even  that  those  you  do  see 
are  not  Viennese. 

One  evening  I  was  sitting  with  a  newly-arrived  friend  in  the 
Volks-Garten  listening  to  the  music  of  Strauss's  band.  Hun- 
dreds of  people  were  walking  up  and  down  the  gravel  promenade, 
enjoying  the  cool  and  delicious  air,  the  bright  lights,  and  above 
all,  the  sparkling  music  of  Vienna's  most  celebrated  composer. 
Two  women  passed  near  us  ;  they  were  beautiful  beyond  ques- 
tion, and  my  friend,  who  had  not  yet  learned  that  it  is  unsafe  to 
say  anything  in  a  mixed  assemblage,  on  the  supposition  that 
those  around  will  not  understand  you,  remarked  audibly:  "  Those 
are  the  prettiest  girls  I  have  yet  seen  in  Vienna." 

"  Thank  you,  sir,"  said  one  of  them,  as  the  twain  passed  on 
and  sat  down  in  another  part  of  the  garden. 

Half  an  hour  later,  we  were  strolling  about,  and  went  unnoticed 
near  their  table.  They  were  talking  English  in  an  accent  that 
showed  they  were  from  London,  or,  at  all  events,  from  some  part 
of  the  Queen's  dominions.  Not  far  from  them  were  two  other 
handsome  women,  who  were  talking  French  with  a  pure  Parisian 


"the    beautiful    blue    DANUBE."  57 

accent  ;  and  near  these,  again,  there  were  others  talking  Hun- 
garian. 

There  is  one  part  of  the  Volks-Garden  where — on  Tuesday 
and  Friday  evenings — you  will  find  an  assemblage  of  the  fash- 
ionable men  and  women  of  Vienna,  the  members  of  the  old  and 
wealthy  families,  who  are  received  at  court,  and  sometimes  belong 
to  it,  and  without  whose  sanction  nobody  can  be  admitted  into  that 
charmed  circle  known  as  "  Society."  I  took  particular  pains  to 
look  at  this  assemblage  in  a  search  for  beauty,  and  am  obliged  to 
say  that  I  found  very  little  of  it.  There  were  some  pretty  women, 
but  not  a  conspicuous  number;  nearly  all  of  them  were  richly 
dressed,  but  in  a  "  louder  "  style  than  you  expect  to  find  among 
really  fashionable  people.  New  York  or  Washington  society 
would  present  a  better  appearance  than  would  that  portion  of 
Viennese  society  that  I  saw.  And  people  who  lived  there  told  me 
that  I  had  seen  a  very  good  sample  of  it. 

One  pleasant  afternoon  in  October,  when  the  sun  shed  its  mel- 
low rays  on  the  grey  walls  of  Vienna,  tinging  the  lofty  spire  of 
St.  Stephen's  Cathedral  with  golden  light,  and  burnishing  the 
faded  foliage  of  the  venerable  trees  in  the  delightful  park  of 
Austria's  capital,  I  hurried  to  the  banks  of  the  beautiful  blue 
Danube,  which  Strauss  has  made  famous  through  the  music  lov- 
ing world  by  the  dedication  of  one  of  his  most  charming  waltzes. 
My  prosaic  object,  amid  so  many  poetical  surroundings,  was  to 
take  the  evening  boat  to  Presburg.  After  the  customary  wran- 
gle with  the  hackman,  I  passed  the  gang-plank  and  stood  among 
plump  "  fraus"  and  "  frauleins"  with  keen  black  eyes,  set  above 
rosy  cheeks,  beneath  an  abundance  of  luxuriant  hair  of  raven 
hue.  Austrian  peasants  were  there  with  coats  of  coarse  cloth 
like  our  once  famous  "  butternut  ;"  and  Hungarian  peasants 
were  there  with  coats  of  sheep-skin.  Languages  mingled,  as 
did  the  speakers,  but  the  Austrian  voices  were  in  the  majority, 
quite  as  much  as  were  the  owners  thereof.  The  Austrian  is 
more  loquacious  than  the  Hungarian ;  the  latter  has  a  calm  dig- 
nity about  him,  reminding  one  of  the  Orient,  and  he  is  more 
economic  in  his  use  of  words — possibly  for  the  reason  that  it  is 
no  easy  matter  to  speak  his  language  even  when  one  is  born  to 
it. 


58  HISTORIC    BATTLE-FIELDS. 

Immediately  below  Vienna  the  Danube  runs  through  a  broad 
plain  that  offers  nothing  of  special  interest,  unless  it  be  the  spot 
where  in  1809  Napoleon  built  a  bridge  by  which  his  army  crossed 
the  river  on  the  night  of  the  fourth  of  July,  to  fight  on  the  fifth  the 
battle  of  Wagram,  which  cost  the  Austrians  twenty-six  thousand 
men  and  led  to  the  treaty  of  Vienna  in  October  of  the  same 
year.  As  we  look  towards  the  east  the  horizon  is  everywhere  lim- 
ited by  mountains  ;  and  as  we  approach  them  we  discover  a 
change  in  the  character  of  the  country.  The  plain  disappears 
and  is  succeeded  by  hills.  On  the  first  of  these,  on  the  right 
bank,  is  the  picturesque  town  of  Hainburg,  with  its  ruined 
chateau  dating  from  the  middle  ages,  and  also  a  well  built  one 
of  more  modern  days. 

If  we  are  smokers  we  should  take  a  second  look  at  Hainburg, 
for  here  is  the  imperial  factory  employing  two  thousand  persons 
in  the  manufacture  of  cigars.  Tobacco  in  Austria  is  a  govern- 
ment monopoly  ;  cigars  are  made  by  the  government  and  sold  to 
the  retail  dealers  at  a  discount  of  five  per  cent.,  and  this  is  the 
only  profit  allowed.  Whether  you,  as  a  smoker,  buy  one  cigar, 
five  cigars,  five  hundred  or  five  thousand,  you  pay  the  same  price 
per  stuck,  and  there  is  no  choice  as  to  shops,  so  far  as  quality  is 
concerned.  Whether  you  buy  in  the  Graben  or  the  Taberstrasse 
of  Vienna,  or  in  an  obscure  shop  in  an  obscure  village  a  hun- 
dred miles  from  the  capitol,  you  get  the  same  quality  of  cigar  for 
five,  seven,  nine,  ten,  or  twelve  kreutzers,  in  the  one  place  as  in 
the  other.  All  come  from  one  factory,  and  their  goodness  or 
badness  never  varies. 

A  little  below  Hainburg  we  pass  the  mouth  of  the  river  March, 
which  separates  Austria  from  Hungary.  It  is  not  a  large  stream, 
barely  wide  enough  at  this  season  of  the  year  to  be  called  a  brook, 
but  it  is  not  always  thus.  The  March  is  sometimes  very  deep 
and  strong,  and  it  has  puzzled  many  a  military  commander  how  to 
cross  it.  During  the  various  wars  between  Austria  and  Hungary 
several  battles  were  fought  on  the  banks  of  this  river,  some  of 
them  of  a  very  sanguinary  character.  But  all  is  quiet  now,  and 
the  only  demonstration  witnessed  during  our  voyage  was  that 
some  of  the  Hungarian  passengers  raised  their  hats  as  the  boat 
passed  the  March,  and  one  of  them  took  the  trouble  to  inform 


AN  IMPERIAL  WINE  CELLAR.  59 

me  of  the  political  importance  of  the  locality,  saying  that  he  had 
served  in  the  last  war  between  the  kingdom  and  the  empire. 

We  wind  among  hills,  some  of  them  steep  and  rugged,  and  one 
crowned  by  a  ruined  fortress  which  once  guarded  the  frontier  and 
kept  watch  over  the  river.  We  see  the  old  castle  of  Presburg, 
standing  out  against  the  evening  sky  ;  and  it  is  dusk  when  we 
pass  the  bridge  of  boats  which  has  been  opened  for  our  descent, 
and  the  boat  swings  round  to  the  landing  place  at  the  ancient 
capital  of  Hungary.  No  wonder  Austria  and  Hungary  were 
always  at  each  other's  ears  when  their  capitals  were  only  forty 
miles  apart.  'Tis  distance  lends  enchantment  and  preserves 
peace  and  harmony. 

Our  indefatigable  consul  at  Vienna,  General  Post,  had  given 
me  a  letter  of  introduction  to  the  prince  of  wine-growers  at 
Presburg,  Herr  Palaguay  ;  and  as  the  Herr  kept  a  hotel  in  addi- 
tion to  his  wine  business,  the  pair  of  us — an  American  naval 
captain  and  myself — sought  that  establishment  without  delay. 
We  ordered  dinner  as  it  was  late  and  we  were  hungry  ;  the  excel- 
lence of  the  pheasant,  venison,  beef,  and  other  good  things  that 
were  set  before  us,  caused  us  to  eat  abundantly  and  to  entertain 
a  good  opinion  of  the  edible  resources  of  Hungary.  If  we  lived 
thus  at  the  gateway  what  should  we  not  find  in  traversing  the 
kingdom  ?  If  it  were  only  to  secure  a  supply  of  Hungarian 
pheasants,  Austria  would  be  justified,  in  the  mind  of  2. gourmet, 
in  the  subjugation  and  appropriation  of  the  entire  land  of  Kos- 
suth. What  are  national'  rights  against  a  well-supplied  dinner 
table  } 

We  devoted  the  evening  to  a  visit  to  the  spacious  wine  cellars 
of  our  host.  Very  spacious  they  were  ;  and  we  wandered  about 
for  two  hours  among  huge  casks,  some  of  them  containing  three 
thousand  five  hundred  gallons  each,  and  worthy  of  being  con- 
verted into  tenement  houses.  We  tasted  of  Tokay  Imperial  and 
Tokay  Royal,  of  Chateau  Presburg,  Blood  of  Hungary,  and  I 
don't  know  what  else  ;  and  finally  we  grew  weary  of  tasting  and 
went  home.  It  was  from  these  cellars  that  the  imperial  cellar  of 
Maximilian  I.,  the  ill-fated  Emperor  of  Mexico,  was  stocked,  and 
we  were  shown  through  the  place  by  the  younger  Palaguay,  who 
went  to  Mexico  with  Maximilian  and  arranged  his  wine  vaults  m 


60  THE    CHATEAU    AND    CATHEDRAL    OF    PRESBURG. 

the  city  of  the  Aztecs.  Father  and  son  were  warm  admirers  of 
the  adventurous  scion  of  the  House  of  Hapsburg,  and  the  old 
gentleman  never  wearied  of  telHng  us  about  Kaiser  Max  and  his 
good  qualities. 


AN     IMPERIAL    WINE    CELLAR. 


Next  day  we  climbed  to  the  old  chateau  that  overlooks  Pres- 
burg,  and  from  the  esplanade  in  front  had  a  beautiful  view  of  the 
city  and  its  surroundings.  Beneath  us  lay  Presburg,  venerable 
and  grey,  with  its  cathedral,  six  centuries  old,  and  its  Hotel  de  Ville, 
dating  from  the  fourteenth  century.  Directly  at  our  feet  was 
the  Jews-quarter.  There  are  seven  thousand  Jews  here  in  a  pop- 
ulation of  less  than  fifty  thousand ;  and  there  is  more  dirt  and 
general  uncleanliness  in  their  quarter  than  in  all  the  rest  of  Pres- 
burg. West  of  us  the  hills  shut  out  the  view  of  Vienna.  North 
were  the  vine-clad  ridges  whence  come  the  wines  of  Presburg. 
And  to  the  south  and  east  were  plain,  field  and  forest  ;  and  show- 
ins;  a  broad,  winding  belt  of  silver,  the  course  of  the  Danube. 

Immediately  opposite,  and  connected  with  the  city  by  the 
bridge  of  boats,  was  an  island  where  is  the  Prater  of  Presburg  with 
shaded  seats,  with  restaurants  and  open-air  theatres  and  other 
places  of  amusements,  to  which  the  wearied  citizen  goes  to 
recreate  in  the  fresh  air.  We  went  there  in  the  afternoon  and 
found  the  Presburg  adult  of  both  sexes ;  we  went  there  in  the 


INTO  THE  HEART  OF  HUNGARY.  6l 

morning  and  found  the  Presburg  nursery-maid  and  infant  in 
goodly  numbers.  In  the  evening  we  went  to  the  theatre ;  the 
best  box  in  the  house  costs  two  dollars  ;  and  a  seat  in  the  parquette 
forty  cents.  We  had  an  Italian  opera,  William  Tell.  The  sing- 
ing was  fair,  considering  the  price  of  tickets,  and  the  size  of  the 
house,  and  the  son  of  William  Tell  was  represented  by  a  young 
woman  so  pretty  that  my  friend,  the  captain,  was  near  falling  in 
love  with  her,  despite  his  venerable  years  and  his  three  months  in 
Vienna.  The  grand  chorus  consisted  of  twelve  persons,  the 
orchestra  of  nine,  and  the  scenery  was  of  a  miscellaneous  nature 
that  enabled  it  to  do  duty  in  all  the  operas  of  any  ordinary 
repertoire. 

From  Presburg  to  Pesth  by  the  river  is  a  run  of  about  ten 
hours.  Bidding  good-bye  to  the  Captain,  who  was  to  return  to 
Vienna,  I  went  to  the  landing  one  morning  to  take  the  boat  down 
the  river.  She  was  due  at  half-past  nine  o'clock,  and  I  was  there 
ten  minutes  before  the  time.  The  hour  came,  but  no  boat. 
Then  ten,  ten  and  a  half,  eleven,  eleven  and  a  half  ;  and  still  no 
boat.  I  tried  to  be  patient,  but  that  was  not  easy ;  I  interrogated 
everybody,  but  to  no  purpose.  Everybody  was  polite,  but  couldn't 
give  any  reason  for  the  delay. 

Finally,  the  boat  appeared,  and  it  turned  out  that  she  had  been 
aground  in  a  fog  near  Vienna.  Perfectly  simple  explanation 
when  you  know  it !  But  there  had  been  no  fog  at  Presburg, 
and  hence  the  inability  to  comprehend  the  cause  of  the  delay. 

Below  Presburg,  the  river  runs  through  a  level  country  that 
offers  few  objects  of  interest.  It  divides  into  several  branches, 
and  becomes  wide,  and  in  some  places  so  shallow  that  navigation 
is  rather  difficult.  We  wound  about  considerably  in  some  places, 
in  search  of  the  channel,  and  not  infrequently  the  bottom  of  the 
boat  and  the  bottom  of  the  river  came  in  contact.  The  erratic 
course  of  the  Danube  can  be  best  understood  by  a  knowledge  of 
the  fact,  that  two  of  the  islands  formed  by  its  diversion  into  dif- 
ferent channels,  are,  the  one  sixty,  and  the  other  forty  miles  long. 
One  is  twenty,  and  the  other  ten  miles  wide  ;  and  both  are  so 
fertile  that  they  are  called  the  Golden  Gardens.  Their  surfaces 
are  diversified  with  forest,  field,  and  pasture  ;  herds  of  cattle  and 
horses  are  numerous  upon  them,  and  now  and  then  villages  peep 
out  from  the  rich  foliage. 


62  A    FAMOUS    FORTRESS IN    SIGHT   OF    PESTH. 

Back  from  the  river  there  are  extensive  wheat  fields,  and  along 
the  line  of  railway,  just  before  the  harvest,  one  can  ride  for  many 
miles  through  almost  unbroken  fields  of  waving  grain. 

We  pass  the  fortress  of  Komoru,  and  peer  into,  the  casemates» 
whence  the  black-mouthed  cannon  look  frowningly  upon  us. 
Komoru  has  a  bloody  and  eventful  history  ;  she  has  played  an 
important  part  in  all  the  wars  between  Austria  and  Hungary,  and 
in  the  insurrection  of  1848-9  was  twice  captured  and  re-cap- 
tured. The  deeds  of  valor  of  which  Komoru '  was  the  scene, 
would  fill  a  volume  ;  some  of  them  have  found  a  place  in  the  his- 
tories of  that  war,  and  some  live  only  in  the  memories  of  the 
men  who  bore  a  part  in  the  insurrection,  or  in  the  effort  to  sup- 
press it. 

Below  Komoru,  the  Danube  became  more  interesting,  and  we 
entered  a  mountain  region  that  would  have  been  picturesque 
could  we  have  seen  it  by  daylight.  It  was  dark  when  we  passed 
this  portion,  and  it  was  darker  when  we  reached  the  upper  ex- 
tremity of  Isle  Marguerite,  with  its  gardens  and  summer  resorts, 
where  the  people  of  Pesth  seek  recreation  and  pure  air  in  the  hot 
days  of  summer. 

Along  the  channel  that  leads  by  the  pretty  island,  we  steamed 
at  full  speed  ;  and  as  we  swept  beyond  its  groves,  the  twinkling 
lamps  of  Pesth  suddenly  came  into  view,  fringing  the  bank  of 
the  river  with  a  lace-work  of  artificial  light.  The  boat  swung 
round  in  mid-stream,  and  brought  us  to  the  bank,  where  a  stone 
quay,  with  warehouses  and  piles  of  merchandise,  gave  evidence 
of  a  prosperous  city.  The  quay  has  a  modern  and  substantial 
appearance,  and  is  overlooked  by  a  street,  on  one  side  of  which 
is  an  iron  railing,  and  the  other  side  of  which  can  boast  many 
fine  structures,  equalling  in  beauty  and  solidity  most  of  the 
marble  or  iron  fronts  of  New  York.  Pesth  has  accomplished 
much  in  the  last  few  years,  in  the  way  of  building,  and  one  is 
rather  taken  aback  to  find  such  a  prosperous  and  rapidly-growing 
city  so  far  in  the  East. 


CHAPTER     III. 


LIFE    AMONG    THE    MAGYARS, 


A  City  of  x\enown — Overwhelmed  by  the  Floods — Lying  in  Clover — What  I  Saw 
in  the  Hungarian  Capital—"  The  Poor  Folk's  Bath  "—Rather  Warm  Quarters- 
Life  Among  the  Magyars — The  "  Miffs"  of  an  Imperial  Couple— Her  Majesty's 
Choice — A  Model  Captain — Charles  Matthews  and  the  Bowery  Boy — Facts  and 
Fancies  of  a  Snoring  Match— The  "Judge"  and  the  "Doubter" — The  Man 
Who  Wouldn't  Believe— Who  were  the  "  Hamals,"  and  What  They  Did— 
People  in  Strange  Garments— Baggy  Breeches  versus  Slop— The  Fortress  of  Bel- 
grade—Servia,  and  What  I  Saw  of  Its  People— The  Assassination  of  Prince 
Miloch — Rather  Bad  for  Poetry. 

PESTH  was  founded  by  the  Romans,  who  were  attracted  by 
the  mineral  springs  in  the  vicinity.  They  built  a  fort  and 
established  a  sort  of  water-cure,  though  not  on  a  large  scale. 

The  city  has  had  a  rough  time,  and  a  hard  struggle  for  ex- 
istence. It  has  been  captured  and  pillaged  more  than  a  dozen 
— some  say  eighteen — times,  and  for  nearly  a  century  and  a  half 
it  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Turks,  who  were  not  particularly 
gentle  in  their  treatment  of  the  inhabitants.  It  has  been  burned, 
and  it  has  been  overflowed  ;  the  last  great  inundation  was  in 
1838,  when  two  thousand  houses  were  destroyed  in  Pesth,  and 
six  hundred  in  Buda,  on  the  opposite  bank. 

Query. — Isn't  there  a  chance  that  the  "Beautiful  Blue  Danube" 
will  get  high  again  some  time,  and  sweep  away  all  the  fine  ware- 
houses along  the  quay,  together  with  a  few  million  dollars'  worth 
of  the  merchandise  stored  there  .^ 

I  couldn't  help  thinking  of  that  as  I  contemplated  this  busy, 
energetic  Chicago  of  Austro-Hungary,  and  resolved  that  I  would 

(63) 


64  THE    BATHS    AND    WINE-ROOMS    OF    BUDA-PESTH. 

not  leave  my  trunk  over  night  at  the  steamboat  landing.  I  en- 
trusted it  to  a  Hungarian  trdger,  who  strapped  it  on  his  back 
and  motioned  me  to  follow,  like  a  downcast  and  silent  mourner, 
as  he  led  the  way  to  the  hotel  I  named.  I  know  of  but  one  hotel 
in  all  Europe — the  Grand  Hotel  at  Paris — which  can  surpass  in 
extent,  completeness,  and  magnificence,  the  Grand  Hotel  Hun- 
garia  at  Pesth. 

I  passed  four  days  very  pleasantly  at  Pesth,  visiting  its  Mu- 
seum of  Antiquities,  its  Gallery  of  Paintings,  and  going  to  the 
races,  where  I  saw  some  fine  horses  of  Hungarian  stock,  and 
also  some  fine  ones  of  Hungarian  stock  crossed  with  English.  I 
went  to  one  of  the  famous  baths  of  Buda,  where  I  bathed  and 
then  breakfasted  at  the  restaurant  attached  to  the  establishment. 
Buda,  by  the  way,  is  directly  opposite  to  Pesth  ;  the  two  cities 
were  long  distinct,  but  they  are  now  united  into  a  single  munici- 
pality under  the  name  of  Buda-Pesth,  and  the  union  is  strength- 
ened by  a  beautiful  bridge  on  the  suspension  principle.  This 
bridge  was  completed  in  1 848,  and,  though  a  work  of  peace,  its 
early  uses  were  singularly  warlike.  It  was  inaugurated  on  the 
5th  of  January,  1849,  by  the  passage  of  the  Hungarian  army 
under  Kossuth,  pursued  by  the  Austrians.  Four  months  later, 
the  Austrian  army  retreated  over  the  same  bridge,  pursued  by 
the  Hungarians.     Turn  about  is  fair  play. 

Buda  has  a  more  picturesque  site  than  Pesth,  as  it  stands 
partly  on  a  hill,  and  is  dominated  by  the  Blocksberg,  a  moun- 
tain that  overlooks  the  river,  and  is  crowned  by  a  fortress. 
There  are  several  baths  in  Buda,  some  of  them  of  great  extent, 
and  all  having  hot  water  from  natural  springs.  You  can  bathe 
in  a  public  room,  or  you  can  have  a  bath  to  yourself  ;  and  you 
have  the  advantages  of  a  restaurant  in  the  building,  so  that  you 
may  command  your  breakfast  or  dinner,  and  have  it  brought  to 
your  room  if  you  choose,  along  with  anything  liquid  you  wish  to 
select  from  a  wine-card.  Then  there  are  gardens  attached  to  the 
baths,  where  bands  of  music  entertain  the  ear,  and  groups  of  the 
youths  and  maidens  and  adults  of  Buda-Pesth  sit  in  the  shade 
and  regale  themselves  after  the  manner  of  the  German  in  his 
sommer-garten. 

In  one  of  your  promenades  you  may  visit  the  bain  des  pauvres, 
where  both  sexes  bathe  together  with  only  the  scantiest  apparel. 


THE    COUNTRY    OF    KOSSUTH.  6$ 

The  place  is  hot  and  steamy,  and  the  odors  anything  but  charm- 
ing. A  single  glance  satisfied  me,  and  I  was  glad  to  seek  the 
open  air  and  sit  at  one  of  the  tables  in  the  beer  garden,  until  the 
perspiration  had  dried  from  my  forehead  and  the  steam  from  my 
clothing.  This  bath-house  is  a  dome-like  structure,  lighted  by  a 
single  window  in  the  top.  It  was  built  by  the  Turks,  and  was 
used  by  them  as  a  convent  of  dervishes. 

Hungary  is  now  as  thoroughly  Austrian  as  any  part  of  the 
Monarchy.  The  Hungarians  have  all  they  ever  asked  for,  and 
some  of  them  say  they  have  more.  They  have  their  own  parlia- 
ment ;  their  finances  are  kept  separate  from  those  of  Austria, 
and  they  run  their  own  affairs  pretty  much  as  they  please.  The 
Emperor  was  crowned  King  of  Hungary,  and  his  prime  minister. 
Count  Andrassy,  is  a  Hungarian  ;  the  Emperor  is  well  disposed 
towards  the  country  of  the  Magyars — one  of  my  friends  persists 
in  calling  them  the  Maguires — and  as  for  the  Empress,  it  is  well 
known  that  she  likes  the  Hungarians  much  better  than  the 
Austrians,  and  prefers  Pesth  to  Vienna.  The  gossips  whisper 
that  the  august  couple  have  their  "miffs"  occasionally,  and  one 
cause  of  these  matrimonial  jars  is  the  decided  preference  which 
yer  Majesty  shows  for  the  Hungarians.  All  things  considered, 
Hungary  has  reason  to  be  content.  She  can  let  alone  wars  and 
insurrections,  and  attend  to  the  development  of  her  resources, 
which  are  by  no  means  small,  and  that  is  what  she  is  doing,  and 
evidently  intends  to  do. 

From  Pesth  to  Belgrade  the  Danube  has  a  general  southerly 
course,  and  flows  for  the  most  part  through  a  broad  plain,  ex- 
tremely fertile  but  rather  sparsely  inhabited.  There  is  little 
animation  on  the  river  ;  the  principal  objects  to  catch  the  eye  are 
the  numerous  water-mills,  but  they  are  an  old  story  to  one  who 
has  descended  the  Danube  from  Lintz  to  Vienna,  and  from 
Vienna  to  Pesth. 

These  mills  are  very  simple,  inexpensive,  and  effective,  and 
they  utilize  a  power  which  would  otherwise  run  to  waste.  Two 
barges,  or  flat  boats,  one  larger  than  the  other,  are  anchored  in 
the  river,  and  held  about  twenty  feet  apart  by  means  of  a  couple 
of  wooden  beams.  A  rude  wheel  with  the  floats  at  right 
angles  to  the  current,  is  built  between  the  two  boats  ;  an  end  of 
5 


66  AN  "accelerated"  steamboat. 

the  shaft  is  supported  by  each,  and  in  the  larger  of  the  boats 
the  shaft  turns  the  machinery  of  a  flour  mill.  A  house  is  built 
over  the  mill,  and  sometimes  the  miller  lives  there  with  his 
family.  Communication  with  the  shore  is  maintained  by  means 
of  a  plank  or  a  small  boat.  The  mill  costs  but  little  at  the  outset, 
and  the  power  that  turns  it  is  always  ready  as  long  as  water  runs 
in  the  river. 

I  wonder  why  these  mills  are  not  introduced  in  America.  On 
our  western  rivers  where  the  current  is  strong,  they  could  be 
used  to  great  advantage,  and  many  thousands  of  them  could  be 
run  without  interfering  with  navigation. 

The  navigation  of  the  great  river  of  Austria  is  managed  by  two 
companies — one  Austrian  and  the  other  Hungarian.  The  latter 
is  confined  to  Hungarian  waters,  but  the  other — The  Danube 
Steam  Navigation  Company — extends  its  operations  along  the 
whole  line  of  the  river  from  Lintz  to  its  mouth,  and  it  even  runs 
a  line  of  sea-going  boats  between  Galatz  and  Odessa.  On  the 
lower  Danube  below  Pesth  it  has  two  kinds  of  boats,  the  one 
local  and  the  other  express,  or,  as  they  call  them,  "  accelerated." 
The  local  boats  stop  at  all  the  landings,  and  do  not  travel  much 
at  night.  The  "  accelerated  boats  "  only  touch  at  a  few  points 
and  travel  day  and  night,  weather  permitting.  On  the  local 
boats  your  ticket  includes  nothing  but  your  passage  ;  meals  and 
berths  are  extras.  On  the  "accelerated  boats"  you  pay  for  every- 
thing in  a  lump,  and  have  no  trouble  about  settling  at  each  meal 
or  piecemeal. 

I  took  passage  on  the  "  accelerated  "  steamer  Fraiiz  yoscf,  and 
found  her  very  comfortable  ;  her  cabins  were  clean,  her  table 
was  good  and  well  supplied,  and  her  captain  was  designed  by 
nature  to  charm  the  heart  of  traveling  man  or  woman — especially 
the  latter — and  the  design  of  nature  had  been  further  developed 
by  art  and  education.  He  spoke  French  like  a  Parisian,  was  as 
handsome  as  his  own  picture  (it  is  not  always  thus)  ;  wore  such 
a  lovely  mustache,  and  was  as  polite  as  a  courtier  of  the  days  of 
Louis  Quatorze.  He  had  a  mixed  party  to  entertain,  but  he  was 
fully  equal  to  the  task. 

There  were  four  Russians,  two  men  and  two  women  ;  all  were 
polite  and  well  bred,  and  the  women  were  sociable  and  dignified, 


TABLE-MANNERS  OF  THE  MAGYARS.  6^ 

without  being  pert  or  bashful.  There  were  Servians  and  Rou- 
manians of  both  sexes  ;  there  were  Austrians  and  Hungarians 
likewise  ;  there  were  two  Frenchmen — engineers  connected  with 
the  location  of  the  Roumanian  railways  ;  there  were  two  English 
women  of  the  independent  class  that  travels  about  the  world 
unprotected  by  man,  and  perfectly  capable  of  protecting  itself 
under  all  circumstances  ;  and  there  were  three  Americans. 

At  dinner  I  made  a  comparison  of  the  manners  of  the  table 
with  those  of  steamboat  tables  in  America,  and  the  comparison 
was  not  favorable  to  my  own  country.  There  you  generally,  see 
men  eating  in  silence  and  rapidity,  and  with  very  little  regard  for 
the  comfort  of  their  neighbors.  Here  the  meal  was  eaten 
leisurely  ;  everybody  was  civil  to  everybody  else ;  conversation 
was  general,  and  instead  of  fifte.en  minutes  for  refreshments,  we 
had  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  seasoned  the  meal  with  pleasant 
exchanges  of  information  upon  a  variety  of  topics.  There  was 
no  distinction  of  age  or  sex  in  the  conversation,  but  every  one 
seemed  determined  to /aire  son  mieiix  to  enable  the  rest  to  pass 
the  time  agreeably. 

The  incident  described  by  Charles  Matthews  on  one  of  the 
Sound  steamers,  would  have  created  a  first-class  sensation  here : 
"Will  you  have  the  goodness  to  pass  the  salt.?"  said  the  English 
comedian  to  a  Bowery  boy,  who  was  shovelling  meat  and  pota- 
toes down  his  throat  with  the  speed  of  the  most  effective  kind  of 
dredging  machine.  "Salt  by  yer,"  said  the  patriot,  without 
deigning  to  do  more  than  raise  his  eyes,  and  continuing  his  feed- 
ing without  so  much  as  an  instant's  interruption.  "O,  I  beg 
your  pardon,"  said  Matthews,  looking  down  and  espying  the  salt- 
cellar close  to  his  plate,  "I  did'nt  see  it."  "Who  the  —  said  you 
did  .''  "  was  the  gruff  reply.     "  I  said  '  salt  by  yer.'  " 

On  board  the  Franz  Josef,  I  had  intended  to  take  a  private 
cabin,  but  when  I  learned  the  price  of  it  I  changed  my  mind. 
The  price  of  passage  was  eighteen  florins  (a  florin  is  equal  to 
fifty  cents  of  our  money);  a  private  cabin  costs  twenty-three 
florins,  so  that  the  whole  bill  would  have  been  forty-one  florins  ! 
I  didn't  relish  paying  eleven  dollars  and  a  half  for  privacy  when 
there  was  a  good,  comfortable  berth  at  my  disposal  for  nothing. 
The  sleeping  cabin  is  under  the  main  saloon,  and  is  divided  into 


68 


SNORING    FOR    THE    CHAMPIONSHIP. 


cabins  holding  four  persons  each — that  is  if  a  green  curtain  let 
down  in  front  can  be  called  a  division.  I  saw  there  were  many- 
advantages  in  sleeping  there  that  you  would  not  have  in  a  private 
cabin. 

You  could  have,  for  instance,  a  sample  of  the  snoring  of  each 
of  the  nationalities  on  board,  a  thing  you  do  not  get  every  day ; 
if  one  of  the  number  should  happen  to  indulge  in  delirium  tre- 
mens or  fits  you  could  see  the  effect  on  him  without  any  extra 
charge. 

So  I  kept  my  twenty-three  florins,  and  by  paying  a  few  kreutzers 
to  one  of  the  servants,  our  party  of  three  managed  to  get  a  cabin 


"salt  by  yer." 

all  to  ourselves.  The  extra  berth  we  used  for  stowage  purposes, 
and  very  convenient  we  found  it.  We  took  our  tea  and  retired 
early,  as  we  expected  to  be  in  Belgrade  by  daybreak. 

And  such  snoring !  I  had  been  told  that  the  English  and 
Americans  are  the  only  people  who  indulge  in  this  amusement, 
but  I  found  that  my  information  was  incorrect.  Of  those  who 
slept  in  that  cabin  at  least  half  did  themselves  credit  by  the 
extent  and  originality  of  their  nasal  music.  There  was  one  fat 
old  Paissianwho  struck  a  chromatic  scale  with  the  regularity  and 
accuracy  of  a  country  singing-school.  He  would  start  with  a 
light  snort,  then  run  up  to  the  eighth  note,  which  would  be  a 


THE    WINNER    01'    THE    TRUMPET. 


69 


cross  between  the  report  of  a  rifle  and  the  murmur  of  a  brook 
under  the  ice,  and  then  he  came  down  the  eight-rounded  ladder 
to  a  sound  exactly  like  his  preliminary  snort. 

There  was  a  heavy-sided  Austrian  who  kept  him  company  in 
such  a  fashion  that  I  thought  our  boat  had  turned  in  to  a  high 
pressure  one  ;  and  there  was  a  Roumanian  who  had  a  fashion  of 
dropping  his  jaw  and  biting  off  his  snore  every  five  minutes  or 
so.  In  the  first  part  of  the  night  it  was  impossible  to  sleep,  and 
our  party  turned  to  betting  as  to  which  of  the  performers  would 
hold  out  the  longest  on  a  single  spurt.     We  kept  it  up  an  hour 


XHfc   SNURINU    MATCH. 


or  more,  but  the  men  we  backed  were  so  unreliable  that  we  all 
lost  money,  and  finally  growing  sleepy  we  gave  up  the  game. 
Whether  we  added  to  the  music  when  we  fell  asleep,  I  am  un- 
able to  say,  but  I  fancy  that  we  did  not  diminish  it.  In  the 
morning  we  heard  that  the  boat  was  badly  shaken  at  the  stern, 
and  the  captain  said  she  would  have  to  lie  up  after  the  present 
trip.  I  will  lay  a  wager  that  it  was  the  old  Servian  that  did  the 
business. 

We  were  aground  in  the  night  and  detained  by  a  fog,  but  the 
loss  of  time  was  a  gain  in  sight-seeing.  Without  detention  we 
should  have  passed  Peterwardein  in  the  early  morning ;  as  it  was 


jrO  THE   JUDGE    AND    THE    "DOUBTER. 

we  saw  it  after  we  had  taken  breakfast  and  were  in  a  good  mood 
for  contemplation. 

It  is  a  picturesque  fortress  dominating  the  river  and  covering 
an  escarped  hill  that  shows  a  double  fa9ade  pierced  with  port- 
holes, with  a  complex  arrangement  of  bastions,  salient  and  re- 
entering angles,  casemates,  and  sheltered  barracks.  It  can  con- 
tain ten  thousand  men  without  serious  crowding  ;  its  permanent 
garrison  consists  of  about  one-fourth  that  number.  Here  it  was 
that  Peter  the  Hermit  assembled  his  soldiers  for  the  first  crusade, 
and  it  was  from  that  religious  enthusiast  that  the  fortress  re- 
ceived its  modern  name. 

We  saw  here  on  this  part  of  the  Danube,  as  we  had  seen  above, 
boats  towed  by  horses,  seven  or  eight  in  line,  against  the  current ; 
we  saw  droves  of  white  cattle  and  we  rarely  saw  any  other  color 
than  white ;  we  saw  women  working  in  the  fields,  and  at  Mohacs 
we  saw  them  wheeling  coal  in  barrows  or  carrying  it  in  baskets. 
A  little  past  noon  we  were  looking  ahead  and  saw  a  city  perched 
on  a  hill  above  a  fortress,  and  near  it,  and  nearer  to  us,  was  an- 
other city  on  a  low  tongue  of  land. 

The  nearer  city  was  Semlin — the  more  distant  was  Belgrade — 
they  pronounce  it  with  the  accent  on  the  last  syllable  and  make 
it  rhyme  with  "  hard,"  or  very  nearly  so. 

The  river  Save  (rhymes  with  "  halve")  here  joins  the  Danube 
from  the  East  and  forms  the  boundary  between  Austro- Hungary 
on  the  one  hand  and  Servia  on  the  other.  Semlin  is  on  one  side 
of  the  mouth  of  the  Save  and  Belgrade  on  the  other.  Semlin  is 
flat  and  low  and  offers  nothing  picturesque ;  Belgrade  is  elevated 
and  pretty  and  merits  the  admiration  which  has  been  bestowed 
upon  it. 

The  boat  stopped  a  few  moments  at  Semlin  and  then  moved 
on  to  Belgrade,  and  the  two  Americans  whose  acquaintance  I  had 
made  at  Pesth  determined  to  travel  with  me  or  I  with  them  as 
we  had  a  common  object  in  view — to  reach  Constantinople. 
They  were  both  reasonably  well  along  in  years  ;  one  was  called 
"the  Judge"  for  his  fair  round  belly  which  he  was  accustomed  to 
line  with  good  capon  or  anything  else  that  possessed  the  proper 
lining  qualities.  The  other  was  called  "  the  Doctor,"  which  we 
soon  exchanged  to  "  Doubter"  for  the  reason  that  he  doubted 


HAZING    THE    INCREDULOUS. 


71 


and  even  after  seeing  it  his 


a  man  that  could 


THE    "DOUBTER. 


everything  that  he  had  not  seen, 
doubts  generally  continued. 

"  I  have  known,"  said  the  Judge  one  day, 
lift    a   thousand    pounds    of  .- ,  ~ 

lead  at  once." 

"I  doubt  it,"  said  the 
"  Doubter." 

The  Judge  reduced  the 
figure  to  eight  hundred,  then 
to  s-ix  hundred,  and  so  on 
down  to  fifty  pounds,  but  still 
the  doubt  was  maintained. 

I  remarked  that  it  was  once 
told  of  a  man  in  Islip,  Long 
Island,  the  steward  of  the 
Olympic  Club,  who,  in  the 
summer  of  1872,  had  a  tame 
oyster  that  could  sing  "The  Star  Spangled  Banner"  and  fire  a  gun. 
Particularity  as  to  time,  place,  and  circumstance  generally  car- 
ries conviction,  but  it  failed  in  this  instance.  The  Judge  laughed 
and  made  no  response,  but  the  "  Doubter"  shook  his  head  incredu- 
lously. 

We  went  ashore;  a  Servian  ofiticial  examined  our  passports 
and  another  took  a  hasty  survey  of  our  baggage,  and  then  the 
twain  released  us.  We  gave  over  our  baggage  to  a  couple  of 
porters  or  Hainals  as  they  call  them — possibly  a  corruption  of 
the  word  camel  ;  the  name  of  the  animal  whose  proclivities  to 

bear  burdens  are  well  known.  

In  most  parts  of  the  Orient,  particularly  in  Constantinople,  the 
"  Hamals"  are  a  guild  or  labor-union,  and  are  governed  by  rules 
like  labor-unions  in  England  or  America.  And  they  carry  enor- 
mous burdens — iron,  wood,  stone,  boxes,  and  bales,  casks  of  wine, 
anything  and  everything  goes  on  their  backs,  and  is  carried  uphill 
or  down  hill  to  its  destination.  Remember  that  few  streets  of 
Oriental  cities  are  practicable  for  wheeled  vehicles  but  that  every- 
thing to  be  moved  must  be  moved  by  hand. 

The  dress  of  the  hamal  is  peculiar,  and  he  has  a  hard  cushion 
slung  by  straps  over  his  shoulder  and  resting  just  above  the  hips. 


72 


A    TURKISH    "HAMAl" WHAT    IS    HE? 


I  have  seen  one  of  these  fellows  carry  a  load  that  would  be 
sufficient  for  a  one  horse  dray  in  New- York  ;  I  have  seen 
another   carry   a   bale   of  goods    said  to   weigh  three  hundred 

and   fifty   pounds  ;   and    I    have 
seen  another  carry  my  trunk,  my 
friend's   trunk,    and    another 
friend's  trunk,  all  at  once',"'from 
a  hotel   to  a  steamboat  landing, 
where     the    respective    weights 
ascertained    on    the    company's    ,^ 
scales  were  seventy  pounds,  one    . 
hundred    and    fifty  pounds,  and    j 
fOne  hundred  and  forty-five  pounds,    / 
or  three  hundred   and  sixty-five- 
pounds    in    all !       The     hamals 
walk    at    a   dignified  pace — you 
could  hardly  expect  them  to  run 
— they   look   healthy,  but   either 
the  work  is  not  salubrious  or  the 
gods     love     them, 
young.  .  ,  . 

We  followed  the  porters  up 
the  hill  to  the  Hotel  de  Paris, 
and  as  soon  as  we  had  settled 
into  our  rooms  and  looked  through 
the  house  we  sauntered  out  to  see 
the  city. 

'  In  front  of  the  hotel  is  a  public  square  with  a  fountain,  where 
people  fill  water  jars  or  idle  away  a  sunny  afternoon.  Belgrade  is  a 
sort  of  meeting-place  of  the  Occident  and  the  Orient ;  the  costumes 
of  the  lower  classes  are  Oriental,  and  those  of  the  richer  inhab- 
itants were  likewise  Oriental  until  within  the  past  ten  or  twenty 
years.  In  the  strides  which  Servia  has  made  towards  an  exist- 
ence independent  of  Turkey,  she  has  looked  leaningly  and  lov- 
ingly toward  the  West  and  put  on  some  of  its  customs  and  habits. 
Thus  you  see  the  lower  classes  wearing  the  baggy  breeches, 
the  loose  jacket,  and  the  red  cap  of  Turkey,  while  the  well-to-do 
citizen  dresses  in  coats,  and  vests,  and  trowsers  from  the  slop- 


asthey     die 

^ /J  J) 


A  TURKISH   "  HAMAL. 


THE  FORTRESS  OF  BELGRADE.  73 

shops  of  Vienna  and  ParisJ  He  is  proud  to  be  thus  appareled, 
though  his  clothes  fit  him  like  ready-made  garments  everywhere, 
only  a  little  more  so,  and  he  feels  not  altogether  comfort- 
able in  them  and  sometimes  sighs  for  the  garments  of  his 
youth.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  dignity  about  the  Servians  of  all 
classes,  and  you  might  explode  a  fire-cracker  in  the  ear  of  one  of 
them  without  getting  him  to  move  with  any  rapidity. 

We  took  a  short  walk  to  the  fortress  of  Belgrade — a  fortress 
that  has  made  a  great  deal  of  noise  in  the  world  and  has  been  a 
bony  bone  of  contention  for  several  centuries.  In  the  fifteenth 
century  it  was  accounted  one  of  the  first  citadels  in  Europe,  and 
in  1 52 1  it  was  taken  by  the  Turks.  Since  then  it  has  been  cap- 
tured no  less  than  eight  times,  and  it  has  been  twice  transferred 
by  reason  of  treaties.  It  is  a  powerful  fortress,  even  against  the 
artillery  of  to-day,  and  occupies  a  commanding  position  on  a  prom- 
ontory jutting  out  between  the  Danube  and  the  Save. 

The  view  from  the  esplanade  is  one  of  the  finest  on  the  Dan- 
ube, and  embraces  a  wide  range.  Northward  stretches  the  broad 
plain  of  Hungary  ;  to  the  West  is  the  Save  and  its  fertile  valleys  ; 
in  the  south  there  is  a  landscape  of  river,  plain,  and  mountain  ; 
and  at  our  feet  lies  the  flowing  Danube  rolling  away  towards  the 
Draw  Gate  and  the  dark  waters  of  the  Euxine.  The  fort  encloses 
a  pretty  garden  and  miniature  park,  and  a  house  where  once 
lived  the  Turkish  pasha.  By  the  side  of  the  house  there  is  a 
mosque  rapidly  going  to  ruin,  as  also  are  many  parts  of  the  for- 
tress. A  crowd  oiforgats  in  chains  and  guarded  by  half  a  dozen 
soldiers,  are  at  work  on  the  bridge  which  leads  across  the  moat ; 
they  make  way  for  us  to  pass,  and  the  soldiers  of  the  guard  honor 
us  with  a  salute. 

From  the  fortress  we  drove  through  the  town  and  out  upon  a 
macadamized  road  to  Topchidere,  or  Valley  of  the  Artillerists. 
It  is  nearly  two  miles  from  Belgrade  to  Topchidere,  but  the  view 
is  well  worth  the  journey.  There  is  a  pretty  park  and  garden 
covering  quite  an  extent  of  ground  ;  trees  are  arranged  in  rows, 
in  circles,  and  in  other  ways,  according  to  the  fancy  of  the  gar- 
dener ;  there  are  fountains  and  shaded  walks,  carriage  and  bridle 
paths,  and  there  are  numerous  and  easy  seats  where  one  may 
rest  when  he  is  weary.     In  the  centre  of  the  park  is  the  house 


74  THE    ASSASSINATION    OF    PRINCE    MILOCH. 

inhabited  by  Miloch  Obrenovitch,  Prince  of  Servia,  who  died  in 
i860,  and  was  deeply  and  justly  mourned. 

The  house,  and  particularly  the  room  where  he  died,  is  in  the 
same  condition  as  when  he  left  it.  He  preferred  the  rude  furni- 
ture to  the  most  costly  palace  of  modern  times,  and  he  set  an' 
example  of  frugality  that  has  been  of  no  small  benefit  to  his  peo- 
ple. They  showed  us  the  room  where  he  died,  with  his  cane,  his 
shoes,  his  fez  and  other  articles,  just  as  they  were  when  his  phy- 
sicians declared  that  Miloch  was  no  more. 

In  the  same  building  is  the  room  where  his  son  Michael  died 
in  1868,  mortally  wounded  by  the  shots  of  assassins  in  the  park 
where  he  was  riding.  The  blood-stains  remain  upon  the  floor, 
the  bed  and  bedding,  and  also  upon  the  table  where  he  was  laid 
when  the  physicians  examined  the  wound.  The  place  of  the 
assassination  is  half  a  mile  or  more  from  the  house  and  is  marked 
by  a  plain  monument. 

The  story  is  the  old,  old  tale  of  princely  and  kingly  murders  ; 
an  intrigue  was  set  on  foot  by  an  aspirant  to  the  throne  of  Servia, 
Alexander  Karageorgevitch,  and  was  assisted  by  a  scandal  which 
had  a  woman  in  the  case.  Karageorgevitch  had  ruled  in  Servia, 
not  once,  but  twice,  and  naturally  he  wanted  to  be  there  again. 
He  had  many  friends  in  Servia,  and  up  to  the  time  of  the  assas- 
sination his  return  was  not  impossible.  After  the  murder  of 
Michael  there  was  a  judicial  inquiry  which  declared  Karageorge- 
vitch instigator  of  the  assassination,  and  condemned  him  to  per- 
petual banishment. 

The  Prince  of  Servia  at  the  time  I  write  is  Milan  Obrenovitch 
IV.,  a  young  man  who  attained  his  majority  in  1872,  and  conse- 
quently has  had  little  opportunity  to  make  his  name  famous.  He 
is  said  to  be  intelligent,  and  willing  to  listen  to  advice ;  as  his 
country  has  a  constitution  and  a  Congress — called  in  Servian 
Skoupchitia — he  could  not  take  it  far  on  the  road  to  ruin,  suppos- 
ing he  wished  to  do  so.  He  has  made  journeys  to  Paris  and 
Vienna,  where  he  was  warmly  received,  and  it  was  his  reception 
at  Vienna  that  made  trouble  between  Turkey  and  Austria  in 
1873,  and  came  near  plunging  the  two  nations  into  war.  Turkey 
wanted  to  know,  you  know,  why  Austria  had  made  so  much  fuss 
over  the  Prince  of  Servia ;  Austria  said  it  was  none  of  Turkey's 


SERVIA    AND    ITS    PEOPLE.  75 

business  ;  Turkey  said  it  was  an  unfriendly  action  ;  Austria  said 
"you're  anotlier  ;"  Turkey  pouted,  and  Austria  actually  fished 
out  from  the  pigeon-holes  the  passports  of  the  Sultan's  represent- 
ative at  Vienna,  and  was  on  the  point  of  sending  them  to  that 
functionary  with  a  first-class  ticket  {meals  and  cabin  included, 
wines  extra)  to  Constantinople,  when  the  affair  was  smoothed 
over  and  war  was  prevented. 

Servia  lies  between  Turkey  and  Austria,  and  contains  about  a 
thousand  geographical  square  miles.  It  has  a  population  of  about 
a  million  and  a  quarter,  and  of  this  population  all  are  Christians, 
with  the  exception  of  less  than  twenty  thousand.  The  country 
is  agreeably  diversified  with  plain  and  mountain,  and  the  soil  is 
fertile,  though  far  less  productive  than  it  should  be.  The  inhab- 
itants are  not  very  enterprising,  and  have  given  little  atten- 
tion to  public  works ;  the  roads  in  the  interior  are  not  generally 
good,  and  up  to  the  present  time  there  are  no  railways.  A  change 
is  about  to  come  over  Servia's  dream  in  this  respect,  as  she  has 
determined  upon  the  construction  of  a  line  of  railway  southeasterly 
from  Belgrade  to  connect  with  the  Turkish  railway  at  the  frontier, 
to  form  the  connecting  link  between  the  Austrian  and  Turkish 
network  of  railways.  When  this  is  completed  there  will  be  a 
through  rouU  from  London  to  Constantinople,  and  the  present 
long  but  picturesque  line  of  travel  will  become  unpopular.  The 
practical  spirit  of  the  age  is  playing  sad  havoc  with  the  poetry 
of  the  olden  time.  There  is  a  story  that  an  old  sailor  exclaimed 
as  he  looked  at  an  ocean  steamer,  "  There's  an  end  of  seaman- 
ship." And  he  wasn't  so  far  out  of  the  way.  The  romance 
and  charm  of  the  sea  are  knocked  on  the  head  by  our  new-fan- 
gled inventions. 

Servia  adopted  a  new  constitution  in  1869,  and  is  now  a  con- 
stitutional, hereditary  monarchy.  The  person  of  the  prince  is 
inviolable,  but  his  ministers  are  not  let  off  so  easily.  There  are 
two  kinds  of  legislatures,  or  skoiipchinas,  the  ordinary  and  the 
extraordinary  ;  the  former  meeting  once  a  year,  and  the  latter 
summoned  under  extraordinary  circumstances.  The  members 
are  elected  by  the  people,  and  the  constitution  guarantees  equal- 
ity before  the  law,  civil  and  religious  liberty,  freedom  of  the 
press,  and  the  aboUtion  of  confiscation.     The  religion  is  princi- 


y^  A    PLEASANT    MODE    OF    EXECUTION  ! 

pally  Greek  orthodoxy.  Roman  Catholics  abound,  but  are  not 
numerous,  and  there  are  a  few  Jews — less  than  two  thousand — 
who  are  compelled  to  live  in  Belgrade,  as  the  law  will  not  permit 
them  to  dwell  in  the  interior.  Here  is  religious  liberty  with  a 
vengeance !  There  are  a  few  Mohammedans,  but  the  number 
is  steadily  diminishing.  Belgrade,  at  the  time  of  my  visit,  con- 
tained twelve  Mohammedans  and  nineteen  mosques,  some  of  the 
latter  in  ruins  and  the  rest  getting  that  way — a  great  deal  of 
bread  to  a  little  sack  !  Giving  each  mosque  a  single  worshipper 
there  would  still  be  seven  mosques  like  the  little  lions  in  the  boy's 
picture  of  the  prophet  Daniel — they  wouldn't  get  any  ! 

The  army  contains  about  five  thousand  regulars  and  one  hun- 
dred thousand  militia.  The  finances  are  in  excellent  condition  ; 
there  is  no  public  debt,  and  the  taxes,  light  in  comparison  with 
those  of  some  European  countries,  generally  bring  a  revenue  in 
excess  of  the  disbursements.  Three  cheers  for  Servia.  Hip, 
hip,  hooray ! ! 

All  this  time  I  have  kept  you  standing  waiting  in  the  Topchi- 
dere  Park,  while  I  have  been  droning  along  about  Servia  and  her 
government,  for  which  you  don't  care  any  more  than  a  cat  does 
for  existence.  Well,  let  us  get  out  of  the  park  and  return  to  the 
city,  where  we  will  dine  comfortably  and  drink  the  wine  of  the 
country,  and  the  less  said  about  it  the  better.  Wine  culture  in 
Servia  is  in  its  infancy,  and  there  is  no  occasion  to  go  into 
ecstacies  about  the  native  products. 

While  we  are  at  dinner  a  gentleman  tells  us  of  the  old  style  of 
executions  and  their  contrast  with  the  present.  When  the  Turks 
ruled  here,  a  man  sentenced  to  execution  was  thrown  down  a 
bank  about  ten  feet  high,  upon  half  a  dozen  spikes  that  stood 
upright.  If  one  of  the  spikes  entered  a  vital  part  and  killed  him 
instantly,  or  in  a  few  minutes,  his  friends  had  reason  to  thank  for- 
tune. Sometimes  a  victim  would  be  caught  in  the  fleshy  part  of 
the  arm  or  leg,  and  in  this  case  he  might  be  days  in  dying.  No 
food  nor  drink  could  be  given  to  him,  but  he  must  lie  there  and 
perish  of  hunger  and  thirst  and  the  inflammation  of  the  wound 
caused  by  the  pitiless  iron.  My  informant  said  that  less  than 
ten  years  ago  a  victim  of  the  law  lay  thus  for  five  days  before 
death  came  to  his  relief,  and  for  the  first  forty-eight  hours  his 


NICE    TIMES    AMONG    THE    TURKS.  JJ 

screams  were  so  loud  that  they  could  be  heard,  especially  in  the 
stillness  of  the  night,  half  over  the  city  of  Belgrade. 

Since  the  Turks  went  away  a  more  humane  method  has  been 
adopted.  The  criminal  condemned  to  death  is  fed  on  the  best 
that  the  city  contains  for  a  month  previous  to  the  execution  of 
the  sentence  of  the  law.  On  the  fatal  day  he  is  allowed  as  much 
spirit  as  he  chooses  to  drink,  and  in  this  condition  he  is  taken  to 
a  valley  outside  of  the  town.  There  the  death  warrant  is  read, 
and  as  its  last  words  are  pronounced  there  is  a  report  of  a 
couple  of  pistols  and  the  man  falls  dead,  shot  through  the  heart. 
Just  before  my  visit  two  men  were  thus  executed  ;  they  went  to 
their  death  in  a  hilarious  condition,  and  were  singing  and 
shouting  as  they  marched  through  the  town. 


CHAPTER     IV. 


NEARING  THE  ORIENT— "  BACKSHEESH  !  " 


Among  the  Fleas — The  Mystery  of  the  Bedclothes — A  Cool  Explanation — Under 
the  Spray — What  became  of  the  Dragon — A  Queer  Story  about  Flies — What  is 
an  "Araba?" — Conversation  without  Words — Changing  Shirts  in  Public — The 
Iron  Gate— Scene  at  the  Custom  House — Official  Obstinacy — The  "  Sick  Man  " — 
Scenes  in  the  Orient — The  My.-ttries  of  the  Quarantine — How  We  Dodged  the 
Turks— The  Turk  and  his  Rosary— Pity  the  Poor  Israelite  !— Why  an  Unlucky 
Jewess  was  Whipped— The  Secret  of  the  Turkish  Loan— How  the  Money  is 
Spent— Ten  Million  Dollars  Gone  ! — What  is  "  Backsheesh  ?" 

IN  continuing  our  journey  down  the  river,  we  took  passage  on 
board  a  local  boat,  which  proved  to  be  far  less  cleanly  than 
the  "  accelerated  steamer." 

The  table  was  not  good,  and  the  cots  had  each  but  a  single 
sheet ;  the  deficiency  in  bedding,  and  its  inability  to  keep  one 
warm,  were  met  by  a  large  and  assorted  lot  of  fleas  that  made 
things  lively  through  the  night,  and  brought  our  bodies  into  a 
condition  resembling  that  of  a  lobster  recovering  from  a  case  of 
measles. 

The  Judge  snored  happily  through  all  surrounding  troubles, 
and  the  "Doubter"  was  inclined  to  disbelieve  the  existence  of 
the  industrious  insects  until,  when  morning  came,  he  looked  at 
himself  in  the  glass.  Even  then  he  continued  sceptical,  and 
attributed  the  red  spots  on  his  skin  to  the  claret  at  Belgrade, 
and  possibly  to  a  bad  cigar  which  he  smoked  the  day  before. 

As  a  general  thing,  you  cannot  induce  a  hotel  or  steamboat 
servant  to  admit  the  existence  of  anything  disagreeable  about 
the  scene  of  his  labors  ;  but  we  found  it  different  on  board  the 

(78) 


SCENERY    OF    THE    DANUBE. 


79 


Ferdinand  Max.  We  interrogated  the  cabin  steward  on  the  de- 
ficiency of  bedding,  and  he  repUed  that  they  had  enough  when 
the  season  began,  but  the  fleas  had  eaten  it  up !  The  explana- 
tion was  so  reasonable,  that  even  the  "  Doubter  "  accepted  it  ! 

From  Belgrade  to  Basiasch,  the  scenery  of  the  Danube  is 
much  like  that  above  the  mouth  of  the  Save.  At  Basiasch,  the 
railway  from  Pesth  and  Vienna  reaches  the  river,  and  we  took 
on  board  several  passengers  who  had  come  by  rail  from  those 
cities.  The  quick  route  from  Vienna  to  Constantinople  is  by 
this  railway,  but  it  is  a  dreary  ride,  and,  unless  one  is  in  a  hurr}'-, 
he  had  better  stick  to  the  river. 


AMONG   THE    FLEAS. 


Basiasch  has  nothing  attractive ;  it  consists  of  a  railway  sta- 
tion, a  hotel,  and  a  heap  of  coal.  Before  we  tied  up  to  the  wharf, 
its  population  was  much  larger  than  five  minutes  later,  when  the 
passengers  from  the  railway  had  come  on  board. 

We  steamed  on  from  Basiasch  to  Moldowa,  where  we  lay 
through  the  night.  I  took  an  evening  ramble  through  the  town, 
which  possesses  nothing  remarkable  except  its  population,  which 
is  half  military  and  half  peasant  in  character  ;  a  sort  of  Russian 
Cossack  that  performs  military  duty  a  part  of  the  time,  and 
works  in  the  field  when  not  engaged  in  the  service  of  the  state. 
Next  morning,  we  were  to  be  called  bright  and  early  to  continue 


80  •     THE    CAVE    OF    MUCKENHOLE. 

our  journey  at  daybreak,  but  I  was  up  before  the  call,  and  out 
on  deck. 

We  were  to  be  transferred,  and  were  transferred,  to  another 
boat,  an  odd-looking  affair  with  powerful  machinery,  and  with 
two  wheels  on  each  side.  Her  steering-wheel  was  astern,  di- 
rectly over  the  rudder,  and  though  she  was  small  she  required  all 
the  strength  of  two  men  to  control  her. 

On  such  a  boat  we  left  Moldowa,  just  as  day  broke  in  the  east, 
and  steamed  down  the  river  with  the  rapidity  of  a  railway  train. 
The  banks  seemed  to  be  flying  past  us,  or  we  flying  past  them, 
and  the  spray  was  dashed  quite  over  the  boat,  drenching  the 
deck  passengers  who  were  huddled  forward  and  by  no  means 
leaving  dry  the  eiste  classe  astern.  The  blush  on  the  eastern 
horizon  extended,  and  as  daylight  became  clear  and  full  we  en- 
tered the  mountains,  and  were  amiOng  the  boiling  rapids  which 
mark  this  part  of  the  Danube  in  the  season  of  low  water. 

On  the  right  bank  appeared  the  wonderful  fortress  of  Galum- 
butz,  built  by  Maria  Theresa.  Out  of  the  river  rises  a  pyramid 
of  rocks,  and  from  base  to  summit  this  pyramid  is  covered  with 
towers  and  walls,  and  pierced  with  windows  and  port-holes.  The 
foundations  of  the  fortress  were  Roman,  and  the  tradition  is  that 
Trojan  Helen  was  once  imprisoned  there.  Almost  in  face  of  this 
fortress  is  the  famous  cave  known  as  the  Muckenhole,  whence  came 
a  species  of  mosquitoes  that  annually  kill  thousands  of  cattle 
along  this  portion  of  the  Danube  valley.  There  is  a  legend  that 
they  arise  from  the  putrefaction  of  the  dragon  killed  by  St. 
George  ;  they  issue  from  the  cave  in  clouds,  and  extend  their 
ravages  more  than  a  hundred  miles  in  every  direction.  The  gov- 
ernment walled  up  the  entrance  of  the  cave  in  the  hope  of  de- 
stroying the  pest,  but  without  success  ;  the  probability  is  that 
the  insect  inhabits  the  entire  country,  and  only  goes  to  the  cave 
in  bad  weather. 

The  river  makes  many  bends  and  zig-zags,  and  at  times  we 
went  unpleasantly  near  the  rocks.  The  scenery  in  this  part  is 
wild,  and  the  land  generally  too  rough  for  cultivation.  Along 
the  left  bank  there  is  an  excellent  road,  which  extends  from  Mol- 
dowa to  Orsona,  the  frontier  town  of  Austro-Hungary,  and  keeps 
constantly  on  the  river  bank.     On  the  opposite  shore  there  are 


A    QUEER    STORY    ABOUT    FLIES  8l 

traces  of  a  Roman  road  cut  into  the  mountain  side,  but  evidently 
never  completed. 

Two  hours  on  this  four-wheeled  steamer  brought  us  to  Dren- 
kova,  where  we  landed  and  were  consigned  to  carriages  and  carts. 
The  first-class  passengers  had  carriages  that  were  reasonably 
comfortable,  as  they  had  stuffed  seats,  and  backs  to  lean  against, 
but  the  others  were  thrust  isto  arabas  or  common  carts,  some  of 
them  having  straw  to  sit  upon,  some  rough  seats  without  backs, 
and  some  neither  straw  nor  seats.  Sometimes  the  "  araba "  is 
drawn  by  horses,  and  sometimes  by  oxen  ;  in  Turkey  it  is  gener- 
ally drawn  by  oxen,  with  an  arrangement  swinging  over  their 
backs  to  keep  away  the  flies,  and  the  cart  has  in  hot  or  wet 
weather  an  awning  over  it  to  protect  the  travelers.  In  the  pres- 
ent instance  we  had  horses  and  a  driver,  the  latter  a  native  of 
the  country,  and  black  enough  to  be  half  Indian  and  half  negro. 
He  was  amiable  and  anxious  to  please  us,  and  we  got  up  quite  a 
conversation  of  signs,  as  we  had  not  a  single  word  in  common.  I 
tried  him  in  English,  French,  German,  Russian,  and  Italian,  and 
he  tried  me  in  Moldavian,  all  to  no  purpose.  What  an  inconven- 
ience you  find  in  this  thing  of  languages.  Wouldn't  I  like  to 
twist  the  neck  of  the  fellow  who  proposed  to  build  the  Tower  of 
Babel  >. 

The  Danube  was  at  its  lowest,  otherwise  we  should  have  saved 
this  land  travel,  and  could  have  passed  the  upper  Iron  Gate  by 
water.  As  it  was,  we  looked  upon  the  rapids  and  whirlpools,  and 
on  the  rocks  scattered  here  and  there  in  the  channel,  and  were 
not  altogether  sorry  to  be  on  land.  At  one  place  the  channel  for 
boats  is  only  seventy  feet  wide  at  low  water,  and  the  current  is 
very  swift.  The  name  Iron  Gate  comes  from  the  Turkish,  Demi- 
Kapour,  and  is  intended  to  mean  a  hindrance  to  navigation, 
rather  than  a  narrow  passage  barred  with  a  formidable  door. 
The  right  bank  in  this  locality  is  simply  magnificent.  The  moun- 
tains are  steep  and  rugged,  their  summits  covered  with  trees,  and 
their  sides  presenting  enormous  masses  of  grey  rocks,  capri- 
ciously veined  with  red  porphyry,  and  here  and  there  showing 
deep  crevices  that  appear  to  be  the  mouths  of  caverns. 

After  three  hours  of  this  sort  of  travel  we  were  transferred  to 
a  small  steamer  where  we  managed  to  get  an  apology  for  din- 
6 


82 


CHANGING   SHIRTS    IN   PUBLIC. 


ner,  and  where,  when  the  little  cabin  was  full  of  men  and  women, 
a  Hungarian  passenger  with  an  enormous  mustache  and  a  loud 
voice  opened  his  valise,  removed  his  coat  and  vest,  and  coolly 
proceeded  to  change  his  shirt. 

He  was  not  at  all  abashed  to  display  his  back  and  shoulders  to 
the  party,  but  went  on  with  his  toilet  very  much  as  if  in  a  room 

by  himself.  Nobody  in- 
terfered with  him,  and  af- 
ter he  had  finished  his 
change  he  was  the  best 
dressed  man  on  the  boat, 
as  he  could  boast  a  clean 
shirt  while  the  rest  of  us 
were  dusty  with  our  ride 
from  Drenkova. 

From  time  to  time  the 
Danube  in  this  part  of  its 
course  expands  into  large 
basins  like  mountain 
lakes.  One  of  these  is 
particularly  beautiful  as  it 
seems  to  be  completely 
enclosed  and  reveals  no  passage  for  the  river.  By  and  by,  as  the 
steamer  moves  along,  an  opening  is  discovered  and  we  enter  a  deep 
gorge  with  steep  mountain  walls  two  thousand  feet  high  on  either 
hand  and  with  a  width  to  the  river  from  wall  to  wall  in  one  place  of 
only  two  hundred  yards.  The  noise  of  the  wheels  is  echoed  and 
re-echoed  from  side  to  side,  and  the  scene  forcibly  recalled  to  me 
the  prettiest  and  wildest  portion  of  the  Saguenay  in  Canada,  the 
Rhine  near  the  Seven  Mountains,  and  the  Amoor  in  the 
Hingan  defile.  We  are  in  the  defile  of  the  Cazan  (Turkish  for 
Caldron)  the  grandest  part  of  the  whole  Danube  from  Ratisbon 
to  Galatz.  Everybody  is  moved  to  expressions  of  admiration,  all 
save  the  "  Doubter,"  who  declares  that  the  Danube  disappoints  him 
and  is  a  wearisome  and  uninteresting  stream. 

We  land  at  Orsova  (pronounced  Orchova)  to  pass  once  more 
into  carriages  and  go  beyond  the  Lower  Iron  Gate.  Picturesque 
Wallachians  surround  us,  with  their  immense  hats  of  wool  and 


A  TOILET   IN    PUBLIC. 


SCENE  AT  THE  CUSTOM  HOUSE,  83 

their  boots  of  red  leather.  We  halt  a  moment  at  a  little  brook 
which  has  the  Austrian  custom-house  on  one  side  and  the  Rou- 
manian on  the  other  ;  a  Roumanian  official  examines  our  tickets, 
and  allows  us  to  pass  without  examination. 

Speaking  of  the  custom  house  reminds  me  of  a  funny  incident. 

When  I  entered  Servia  at  Belgrade  I  had  in  my  trunk  a  box 
of  Austrian  cigars  which  I  bought  in  Pesth.  Coming  out  of  Bel- 
grade and  going  on  board  the  steamer  I  had  the  same  cigars  ; 
the  Austrian  customs-official  insisted  that  all  cigars  brongJit  into 
Austria  must  pay  duty,  and  he  demanded  a  tax  on  mine  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  the  cigars  came  originally  from  Austria  and  were 
only  going  again  into  the  country  of  their  manufacture.  Luckily 
their  weight  was  less  than  the  quantity  allowed  to  each  traveler, 
otherwise  he  would  have  compelled  me  to  pay  the  tariff.  He 
would  listen  to  nothing  except  the  letter  of  the  law. 

The  Lower  Iron  Gate  is  less  picturesque  than  the  Upper, 
The  mountains  fall  away  from  the  river,  and  the  stream  spreads 
out  over  a  rocky  bed  about  fourteen  hundred  yards  wide  and  a 
mile  in  length.  The  river  falls  about  twelve  feet  in  a  mile  and  a 
half,  and  is  filled  with  whirlpools  and  rapids,  with  everywhere  a 
swift  current  broken  into  waves  that  dash  over  the  deck  of  the 
steamer  in  the  season  when  the  high  waters  prevent  the  passage 
of  boats.  Below  the  rapids  the  river  becomes  practicable,  and 
there  is  no  other  natural  obstacle  to  navigation  below  this  point 
and  the  sea. 

At  a  little  distance  below  the  Iron  Gate  we  found  the  steamer 
that  was  to  carry  us  down  the  Danube,  and  we  were  speedily  in- 
stalled in  her  comfortable  cabin,  once  more  and  much  to  our  de- 
light we  found  ourselves  on  an  "  accelerated "  boat,  though  it 
proved  less  agreeable  than  the  Franz  yosef. 

Before  we  leave  the  Iron  Gate  let  us  have  a  little  gossip  on  the 
question  of  the  Danube. 

From  the  days  of  the  Romans  there  has  been  talk  of  a  canal 
around  the  Lower  Iron  Gate  ;  and  on  the  right  bank  of  the  river 
and  near  the  Servian  village  of  Sip,  there  were  traces  of  the 
work  begun  by  the  Emperor  Trajan  to  this  end.  In  modern 
times  the  subject  has  been  discussed,  surveys  have  been  made 
and  estimates  completed  for  a  series  of  canals  that  should  carry 


84  THE    "SICK    MAN.' 

boats  around  both  the  Iron  Gates  and  render  the  Danube  naviga- 
ble for  its  entire  length.  The  money  could  be  raised  without 
difficulty,  but  there  is  an  obstacle  to  the  work  in  the  shape  of  the 
political  objections  of  Turkey.  No  matter  on  what  basis  the  en- 
terprise is  proposed,  Turkey  has  always  set  her  face  against  it  ; 
the  "  Sick  Man"  is  fearful  that  a  canal  round  these  falls  would 
still  further  impair  his  health  and  therefore  he  says  "  No,"  and 
repeats  it  with  emphasis.  Time  and  again  the  subject  has  been 
discussed  at  Vienna  and  Constantinople,  and  always  with  the 
same  results — Turkey's  opposition. 

On  one  occasion  Austria  announced  that  nolens  volens  the  ca- 
nal would  be  made,  and  thereupon  Turkey  stood  up  on  her  ear — 
she  cannot  stand  easily  on  her  feet — and  threatened  to  go  to  war 
when  the  first  spade  full  of  dirt  was  lifted,  and  on  more  than  one 
occasion  Turkey  has  proposed  to  close  the  Danube  to  commerce 
by  sealing  up  its  mouth  and  permitting  nothing  but  fish  and  water 
to  pass  either  way.  I  am  not  sure  that  she  did  not  want  to  pre- 
vent the  ascent  or  descent  of  the  fish  through  fear  that  they 
would  carry  something  contraband.  Turkey  is  a  goose  and 
doesn't  know  the  necessities  of  the  nineteenth  century.  She 
ought  to  close  business  as  a  nation  and  sell  out  to  somebody  of 
decent  intelligence. 

It  was  near  sunset  when  we  went  on  board  the  steamer  below 
the  second  Iron  Gate.  We  had  made  five  changes  in  the  day  ; 
large  boat  to  four-wheeled  one,  four  wheeler  to  carriages,  car- 
riages to  boat,  boat  to  carriages  at  Orsova,  and  carriages  to  boat 
again.  We  steamed  on  during  the  night,  and  in  the  morning 
when  I  went  on  deck  I  had  my  first  view  of  Turkey.  As  there 
were  no  houses  in  sight  at  my  first  glimpse  I  did  not  think  it 
very  different  from  any  other  country,  but  as  soon  as  we  sighted 
a  town,  and  the  domes  and  minarets  of  the  mosques  came  into 
view,  the  scene  was  changed.  Northward  lay  the  great  jDlain  of 
Bulgaria,  while  to  the  south  was  Bosnia,  a  province  of  the  Otto- 
man empire.  The  southern  bank  was  more  hilly  and  broken 
than  the  northern,  and  villages  were  more  numerous  there. 
They  looked  pretty  at  a  distance,  but  when  you  approached  them 
nearly,  the  beauty  vanished. 

The  first  Turkish  town  I  saw  was  the  reverse  of  attractive,  and 
the  picture  grew  no  better  very  fast,  as  we  descended  the  river. 


NATIVES  OF  THE  COUNTRY FLEAS,  RATS,  AND  DOGS.    8$ 

The  streets,  as  I  saw  them  from  the  boat,  were  dirty,  and  there 
were  piles  of  rubbish  just  above  the  landing.  The  people  on 
shore  were  as  dirty  as  the  streets,  and  I  speedily  made  up  my 
mind  not  to  ask  for  a  consular  appointment  to  any  of  the  Turk- 
ish towns  on  the  Lower  Danube. 

We  didn't  want  to  go  ashore  very  much,  and  we  couldn't  have 
gone  very  much  if  we  had  wanted  to.  There  had  been  some 
cholera  in  Austria  in  the  summer,  and  the  Turkish  government 
had  established  a  quarantine  against  the  Upper  Danube.  Had 
we  chosen  to  land  at  Widin  or  any  of  the  Turkish  towns  where 
the  boat  stopped  we  should  have  been  taken  with  a  pair  of  tongs 
and  led  into  the  quarantine  station.  We  should  have  been 
smoked,  and  scorched,  and  physicked,  and  poulticed,  and  dosed 
for  eleven  days  in  a  shed  with  a  flimsy  roof  and  flimsier  sides. 


"NATIVES  OF  THE  COUNTRY, 


and  with  no  floor,  and  with  no  companions  beyond  natives  of  the 
country,  fleas,  rats,  and  stray  dogs.  If  we  had  survived  it,  we 
should  have  been  let  off  at  the  end  of  that  time  to  see  the  next 
poor  wretch  put  through,  and  if  we  had  fallen  sick  under  the 
treatment  we  should  have  been  sent  to  the  hospital,  which  is 
about  three  times  as  bad  as  the  quarantine.  Altogether  the 
quarantine  was  not  seductive  from  an  aesthetic  point  of  view,  and 
I  determined  to  keep  out  of  it.  If  any  reader  of  this  volume  ever 
has  the  choice  between  a  kettle  of  boiling  oil  and  a  Turkish  quar- 
antine I  advise  him  to  take  the  oil. 

At  all  the  landings  where  we  stopped  the  officials  made  a  great 
fuss  to  keep  the  loafers  back,  for  fear  they  would  take  the  chol- 


Z6 


ONE   WAY    OF    DISINFECTING. 


era.  We  had  no  passengers  for  these  landings,  but  we  generally 
had  letters,  papers,  and  merchandise.  Letters  and  papers  were 
received  with  a  stick  or  a  pair  of  tongs  and  thrown  into  a  tin  box, 
which  a  boy  instantly  carried  off  to  a  sulphur  fire,  where  its  con- 
tents could  be  disinfected.  Tlien,  and  not  till  then,  could  they 
be  safely  handled.  Merchandise  was  piled  on  the  dock,  but  what 
disposition  was  made  of  it  I  could  not  learn.  I  bought  a  paper 
of  cigarette  tobacco  from  a  boy  on  shore.  He  tossed  the  pack- 
age on  board  and  I  then  threw  him  half  a  franc.     Before  touching 


PRECAUTIONARY   MEASURES. 


it  he  pushed  it  into  a  puddle  of  water,  and  after  working  it  about 
for  a  while,  ventured  to  grasp  it  with  his  dirty  fingers. 

Cholera  couldn't  get  through  the  encrusted  skins  of  these  fel- 
lows much  quicker  than  a  mouse  could  go  through  the  side  of  a 
teapot,  and  as  for  the  passengers  and  crew  of  the  steamer,  we 
were  anything  but  a  sickly  lot.  Yet  they  were  fearful  that  we 
should  do  them  harm,  as  much  as  though  they  were  chickens  and 
we  were  hawks  and  eagles. 

We  kept  on  our  way  without  many  incidents  of  importance,  or 
rather  without  any,  or  I  should  record  them.  We  met  a  steamboat 
flying  the  Turkish  flag  and  steering  clear  of  us  ;  and  we  passed  a 


A  FOLLOWER  OF  THE  PROPHET.  8/ 

Turkish  gunboat  tied  up  to  one  of  the  banks,  but  with  steam  up. 
At  every  Turkish  landing  we  went  through  the  farce  of  the  tongs, 
but  at  the  northern  landings  we  had  none  of  it.  Piles  of  wheat 
were  lying  on  the  northern  bank,  and  generally  there  were  groups 
of  picturesque  Wallachians  around  them.  We  met  Greek  brigs 
and  schooners  ascending  the  river  to  bring  away  this  wheat,  and 
at  a  few  places  we  saw  these  vessels  lying  at  the  shore.  Their 
crews  were  a  brigandish-looking  lot  with  red  caps,  baggy  trow- 
sers,  and  a  general  resemblance  to  the  stage  robbers  in  Fra 
Diavolo. 

Further  down  the  Danube  we  met  more  of  these  vessels  :  I 
counted  over  sixty  in  sight  at  one  time,  and  there  were  three  or 
four  times  that  number  at  Braila  or  near  there.  A  large  part  of  the 
commerce  of  the  Black  Sea  is  in  the  hands  of  Greek  merchants, 
and  they  are  said  to  be  very  enterprising.  At  Galatz  and  Braila 
there  are  many  Greek  houses  and  agencies.  Some  of  the  older 
estabhshments  are  accounted  very  wealthy.  So  nearly  do  they 
monopolize  business  that  the  language  of  commerce  at  Galatz  is 
said  to  be  Greek  with  a  mixture  of  Italian. 

It  was  the  month  of  Ramadan,  or  time  of  fasting,  with  the  Mos- 
lems. No  good  and  faithful  follower  of  the  prophet  is  allowed 
to  eat  or  drink  between  the  rising  and  the  setting  of  the  sun. 
A  gun  is  fired  at  sunrise  and  another  at  sunset,  and  between  those 
discharges  of  artillery  the  fast  is  strictly  observed.  We  had  a 
priest  or  "  Iman"  on  board  our  steamer,  a  fellow  with  a  white  tur- 
ban and  a  long  cloak  or  "  caftan,"  and  with  a  pleasing  face  fringed 
with  a  dark  beard.  He  observed  the  fast  strictly  and  neither  ate 
nor  drank  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  but  he  made  up  for  his  absti- 
nence to  some  extent  by  a  free  use  of  his  narghileh  or  water 
pipe. 

He  occupied  a  seat  in  the  smoking  room,  a  sort  of  divan  where 
he  could  double  one  foot  beneath  him  and  rest  almost  motionless 
for  hours.  He  carried  in  his  left  hand  a  string  of  beads,  which 
he  slowly  told  off  with  the  fingers,  a  habit  somewhat  analogous 
to  the  Roman  Catholic  custom  of  counting  the  beads  while  say- 
ing prayers.  With  the  Moslems  this  bead  business  has  no 
religious  significance,  but  is  merely  a  pastime.  Once  I  found 
him  on  deck  saying  his  prayers,  which  he  did  with  many  genu- 


88  ROUMANIA. 

flexions,  bows,  and  prostrations.  He  was  required  to  keep  his 
face  turned  towards  Mecca  while  praying,  and  as  the  boat  was 
just  then  taking  a  somewhat  tortuous  course,  I  am  afraid  he  did 
not  make  a  strict  compHance  with  the  law. 

At  night  during  Ramadan  the  mosques  are.lighted  and  present 
a  brilliant  appearance.  There  is  a  double  row  of  lights  on  each 
minaret,  round  the  railing  of  the  platform  where  the  muezzin 
stands  when  he  calls  the  people  to  prayer,  and  the  effect  is  quite 
pretty. 

It  was  nine  o'clock  at  night  when  we  reached  Bucharest,  the 
capital  of  Roumania,  so  that  there  was  not  much  to  be  seen  en 
route.  But  I  was  able  to  collect  some  information  about  the 
country,  and  as  it  is  one  of  the  Danubian  principalities  and  forms 
an  interrogation  point  of  the  "  Eastern  Question,"  we  will  make 
a  brief  examination  of  its  condition. 

The  principality  of  Roumania  is  formed  by  the  union  of  the 
ancient  provinces  of  Moldavia  and  Wallachia.  It  contains  about 
six  thousand  square  leagues  of  territory,  and  five  million  inhabit- 
ants. Four  millions  of  the  latter  belong  to  the  Greek  Church,  and 
the  rest  are  Armenians,  Roman  Catholics,  Protestants,  Jews,  Gen- 
tiles, Moslems,  and  a  hundred  thousand  or  so  don't  know  what  they 
are  nor  what  they  belong  to.  Then  there  are  inhabitants 
who  belong  somewhere  else,  such  as  Germans,  Hungarians, 
Greeks,  English,  French,  Russians,  and  some  who  are  ashamed  to 
own  the  nations  of  their  birth,  for  reasons  best  known  to  them- 
selves. 

The  various  sects  and  nationalities  get  along  quite  well  together, 
with  the  exception  of  the  Jews,  who  have  a  very  hard  time. 
They  have  been  whipped  and  otherwise  tortured  on  account 
of  their  opinions  or  as  a  cloak  to  robbery,  and  until  quite  recently 
it  was  not  unusual  to  hear  of  the  banishment  or  massacre  of  all  the 
Jewish  inhabitants  of  a  village,  town,  or  district.  A  better  senti- 
ment, or  rather  a  less  barbarous  one,  seems  to  prevail  within  the 
last  year  or  two,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  persecutions  are  at 
an  end  or  soon  will  be. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  treatment  of  the  Jews,  a  gentleman 
told  me  that  one  day  in  Bucharest  he  heard  screams  issuing 
from  a  yard  at  the  back  of  the  hotel  where  he  was  lodged.     He 


"SHE   IS   A  JEWESS. 


89 


went  to  the  window  and  saw  a  girl  of  eighteen  or  twenty  tied  to 
a  stake.  Her  clothing  was  stripped  from  her  shoulders  and  a 
strong  man  was  whipping  her  while  two  others  stood  by.  The 
gentleman  asked  what  she  had  done,  and  was  told  "  She  is  a  Jew- 
ess ! "  No  other  cause  was  alleged,  and  the  men  appeared  sur- 
prised when  the  stranger  wished  to  know  what  crime  she  had 
committed. 


"  SHE   IS  A  JEWESS." 

The  government  of  Roumania  is  very  much  like  that  of  Servia, 
a  constitutional  principality  which  is  independent,  except  that  it 
pays  a  yearly  tribute  to  Turkey.  Servia  pays  twenty-five  thou- 
sand pounds,  and  Roumania  twice  that  amount.  A  member  of 
the  Hohenzollern  family,  under  the  title  of  Prince  Charles  of 
Roumania,  occupies  the  throne,  and  his  hereditary  right  is  guar- 
anteed by  th®  Sultan,  while  the  independence  of  Roumania  is 
guaranteed  by  the  seven  powers  that  signed  the  treaty  of  Paris — 
Austria,  France,  England,  Italy,  Prussia,  Russia,  and  Turkey. 
The  constitutional  rights  of  the  people  are  like  those  of  Servia, 
but  the  finances  are  not  in  as  good  condition,  for  the  reason  that 
the  goverment  has  created  debts  in  order  to  construct  railways, 
and  make  other  internal  improvements.  The  network  of  rail- 
ways already  finished  and  now  constructing  is  very  good,  and  when 


QO  THE  SECRET  OF  THE  TURKISH  LOAN. 

united  with  the  Austrian  system,  the  resources  of  Roumania  will 
be  rapidly  developed.  The  standing  army  has  about  twenty-five 
thousand  men,  and  the  militia  includes  every  able  bodied  citizen. 
In  case  of  war  one  hundred  thousand  men  could  be  put  in  the 
field  in  a  very  short  time. 

It  must  be  a  great  consolation  to  Servia  and  Roumania  that 
they  are  able  to  make  so  much  trouble  as  they  do,  or  rather  that 
so  much  trouble  is  made  about  them.  They  are  the  bases  of  the 
"  Eastern  Question,"  and  if  it  were  not  for  these  two  princi- 
palities, the  ministers  of  foreign  affairs  in  Turkey,  Russia,  and 
Austria  would  have  their  labor  reduced  one  half,  if  not  more. 
The  correspondence  that  has  passed  between  those  governments 
concerning  the  principalities,  is  nearly  as  voluminous  as  that 
about  the  Alabama  claims  ;  in  the  past  five  centuries  the  princi- 
palities have  been  the  cause  or  the  object  of  about  a  dozen  wars, 
and  very  likely  will  be  the  cause  of  fresh  wars  in  time  to  come. 

It  is  generally  believed  that  Prussia  and  Italy  don't  care  a  pin 
what  Austria  and  Russia  do  with  the  East,  and  I  fancy  that  if 
England  and  France  could  only  get  their^  money  back,  they 
wouldn't  care  so  much  as  they  did  at  the  time  of  the  Crimean 
war.  I  suspect  they  have  found  out  they  made  a  mistake 
in  backing  up  Turkey,  and  would  like  to  get  out  of  it  gracefully. 
I  once  championed  a  fellow  who  had  been  badly  treated  by  his 
neighbor — at  least  that  was  Ids  story — and  was  in  need  of  pecu- 
niary and  other  aid.  I  defended  him  morally  and  physically, 
and  more  especially  I  loaned  him  money  to  buy  a  set  of  tools, 
and  to  clothe  himself  and  family  until  he  could  earn  money 
enough  to  repay  me. 

Well,  what  did  he  do  }  He  bought  a  gold  watch  and  chain 
with  the  money,  when  all  the  time  he  had  a  good  silver  watch, 
and  then  came  round  for  more  cash. 

Turkey  has  been  borrowing  money  in  Europe,  and  some  of 
her  loans  have  been  guaranteed  by  France  and  England.  Nearly 
all  the  money  has  been  wasted ;  a  very  little  has  gone  for  the 
construction  of  railways,  but  most  of  it  has  been  put  into  palaces, 
diamonds  for  the  women  of  the  seraglio,  ships  of  war,  mosques, 
and  the  like,  and  every  day  there  are  thousands  of  pounds  wasted 
on  senseless  displays. 


HOW   THE    MONEY    IS    SPENT. 


91 


Here  is  a  specimen  case.  They  built  an  imperial  palace 
known  as  the  Palace  Tshiragan,  when  they  had  already  palaces 
enough  for  a  dozen  of  Sultans.  The  Sultan  moved  into  the 
building  when  it  was  finished — it  cost  two  million  pounds  ster- 
ling,  or  about  ten  million  dollars  in  gold — and  he  lived  there  just 
two  days  !  Then  he  moved  out  because  he  had  an  unpleasant 
dream,  and  the  palace  will  never  again  be  occupied.     It  stands 


THE    PALACE    Tbll  I  RAGAN. 


idle,  empty,  and  beautiful  on  the  banks  of  the  Bosphorus,  and 
will  stand  thus  till  destroyed. 

A  couple  of  years  ago  the  Sultan  commanded  that  a  conserv- 
atory should  be  erected  in  his  garden.  Glass  and  other  mate- 
rials were  ordered  from  Europe,  and  hundreds  of  men  were  set 
at  work.  It  was  finished  at  a  cost  of  over  a  million  of  dollars, 
and  His  Majesty  went  to  see  it.  The  old  idiot — I  wish  to  be 
respectful  as  he  is  a  Sultan — was  not  in  a  good  temper  for  some 
reason,  and  determined  not  be  pleased.  He  raised  his  languid 
eyes  to  the  roof  of  the  building  and  then  turned  away. 

"I  don't  like  it,"  he  said  ;  "destroy  it!  " 

And  before  night  every  piece  of  glass  was  broken,  and  the 
beautiful  conservatory  was  leveled. 


Q2  WHAT    IS    "  BACKSHEESH  "'  ? 

This  is  the  way  the  Sultan  and  his  government  have  been 
using  the  money  borrowed  at  a  high  rate  of  interest;  and  they 
are  now  borrowing  money  at  high  interest  to  pay  tJiat  interest. 
This  thing  will  go  on  until  Turkey  can  borrow  no  more  money, 
and  then  the  whole  concern  will  collapse.  When  she  can't  bor- 
row any  more,  the  probabilities  are,  she  will  stop  the  interest  on 
her  present  debt  and  give  herself  no  trouble  about  the  principal. 
Turkey,  as  a  nation,  is  very  much  like  a  great  many  of  her  sub- 
jects. Every  traveller  in  the  East  will  tell  you  that  he  is  con- 
stantly appealed  to  to  give  "  backsheesh  " — i.  e.  a  gratuity — not 
only  by  those  who  have  served  him,  but  by  those  who  have  ren- 
dered no  service  whatever,  and  do  not  expect  to.  From  the  time 
you  enter  the  Orient  till  the  time  you  leave  it,  that  word  is  dinned 
into  your  ears  so  continually  that  it  seems  like  one  prolonged  echo. 

As  the  natives,  young  or  old,  masculine,  feminine,  or  neuter 
(the  latter  are  the  guardians  of  the  harems),  appeal  thus  to  the 
individual  foreigner,  so  Turkey  as  a  nation  squats  or  stands 
before  other  nations,  and  takes  up  the  perpetual  demand  for 
"  backsheesh."  The  foreigner,  when  first  entering  the  Orient, 
generally  submits  to  the  appeal,  and  gives  of  his  abundance  ;  but 
he  soon  finds  that  begging  is  universal,  and  that  the  purse  of 
Fortunatus  would  soon  touch  bottom.  So  he  becomes  prudent, 
especially  as  the  Oriental  is  never  satisfied.  Whether  you  give 
copper,  silver,'  or  gold,  by  the  piece  or  by  the  handful,  is  all  the 
same,  the  begging  or  rather  the  demanding  continues. 

The  nations  and  moneyed  men  of  Europe  are  learning  the 
habits  of  the  Turk,  and  emulating  the  example  of  prudent  travel- 
lers. Turkey  is  about  at  the  end  of  her  borrowing,  and  the 
collapse  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  is  one  of  the  near  possibilities. 
Russia  is  patiently  waiting  ;  Austria  is  waiting  ;  Prussia  is  wait- 
ing ;  and  the  other  nations  are  waiting  for  the  dissolving  view 
which  will  enable  them  to  reconstruct  the  map  of  Europe.  None 
of  them  are  likely  to  take  any  measures  to  hurry  "the  sick  man  " 
to  his  end,  as  he  is  going  in  that  direction  with  a  rapidity  that 
ought  to  be  satisfactory  to  the  on-lookers. 

Through  fleets  of  ships  and  steamers  we  threaded  our  way 
from  Galatz  and  along  a  tortuous  channel  through  a  forest  of 
reeds,  till  we  passed  Selino,  and  were  tossing  on  the  waters  of 
the  IMack  sea,  with  the  prow  of  our  steamer  towards  Odessa. 


CHAPTER     V. 


THROUGH  THE  CRIMEA— IN  AND    AROUND   SEVASTOPOL. 

A  Visit  to  the  Crimea — The  Porter  with  the  Big  Books — The  Danger  of  Siberia — 
Our  Entry  into  Sevastopol — Terrible  Reminiscences  of  the  Crimean  War — How 
we  shirked  the  Cemetery — The  Great  Dock- Yard  of  Sevastopol — We  Visit  a 
Remarkable  Gunboat  —What  we  saw  Below-Deck — The  Story  that  our  Landlord 
Told — An  Enterprising  Tartar — The  "Doubter"  offers  an  opinion — How  the 
"Judge"  stole  a  Newspaper — Adventures  by  the  Way — The  "Doubter"  gets  into 
Trouble — We  Fly  to  the  Rescue — Eccentricities  of  a  Selfish  Man — We  Rise  and 
Depart. 

WE  went  to  Odessa,  as  I  said,  solely  to  escape  the  quarantine 
on  entering  Turkey.  Being  there — less  than  two  hundred 
miles  from  Sevastopol — we  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  pay 
a  flying  visit  to  the  Crimea. 

We  reached  Odessa  in  the  morning,  and  found  that  a  steamer 
left  at  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  for  the  ports  of  the  Crimea,  and 
as  soon  as  we  had  passed  the  formalities  of  the  Custom-House 
and  the  police — no  trifling  matters — we  went  to  the  steamer  in 
question.  And,  by  the  way,  they  put  us  through  very  cautiously, 
and  also  very  politely,  when  we  entered  the  empire. 

Three  officers  of  the  police,  followed  by  a  porter  with  an  arm- 
ful of  big  books,  came  on  board  the  Metternich,  the  steamer  from 
Galatz,  as  soon  as  she  entered  the  port.  They  took  seats  at  the 
cabin  table,  spread  out  the  passports  which  had  been  collected  by 
the  purser  of  the  steamer,  and  then  began  work. 

They  disposed  of  two  or  three  persons,  and  then  came  to  my 
case. 

"  Have  you  ever  been  in  Russia  before .-'"  said  one  of  the  offi- 
cials in  French. 

(93) 


94  A    SUSPICIOUS    OFFICER. 

"  Yes,"  I  answered. 

"  When  was  the  last  time  ?" 

"In  1867." 

"  Where  were  you  ?"  and  he  looked  at  me  very  attentively. 

"  In  a  great  many  places,"  I  answered.  "  In  Moscow,  Peters- 
burg, Warsaw,  Kazan,  and  in  Eastern  and  Western  Siberia. 

"  Ah,  you  have  been  in  Siberia !"  said  the  official,  and  he  and 
the  others  pricked  up  their  ears. 

"  No7is  verrojts,''^  he  continued,  and  he  picked  up  one  of  the  big 
books  and  turned  to  the  initial  of  my  name.  "  Possibly  I  may 
have  to  report  your  arrival  at  once,"  he  remarked,  as  he  scanned 
page  after  page  of  the  volume. 

When  he  had  finished  that,  he  went  for  another,  and  altogether 
he  looked  through  four  or  five  books. 

"There  is  nothing  against  you,"  he  said,  as  he  finished  the  ex- 
amination, and,  with  a  smile  worthy  of  a  diplomate  of  the  highest 
rank,  he  signed  my  passport  and  handed  it  over,  with  the  wish 
that  I  might  enjoy  my  trip  to  the  Crimea,  and  have  bo7i  voyage 
partoiit,  and  he  was  kind  enough  to  attend  next  to  the  passports 
of  my  companions,  as  we  had  no  time  to  spare  in  getting  to  the 
Crimean  steamer. 

"  The  Russian  Company  of  Navigation  and  Commerce,"  to 
which  I  entrusted  myself  for  the  journey  to  Sevastopol — they 
call  it  Sev-as-to-pol  there — is  a  big  concern.  It  has  eighty-four 
steamers,  varying  all  the  way  from  one  hundred  to  thirty-six  hun- 
dred tons  each  ;  nine  of  them  are  of  the  largest  class  of  ocean 
steamers,  and  two-thirds  of  the  rest  are  none  of  them  less  than 
nine  hundred  tuns.  The  large  steamers  run  from  Odessa  to  Lon- 
don, to  the  eastern  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  to  the  Red  Sea, 
and  the  ports  of  the  Indian  Ocean.  The  other  steamers  navigate 
the  Black  Sea  and  the  adjacent  waters,  including  several  rivers 
that  flow  into  that  sea  and  the  sea  of  Azof.  I  expected  to  find 
their  boats  dirty  and  badly  managed  ;  on  the  contrary,  I  found 
them  clean  and  comfortable,  with  good  service  in  the  cabin  and 
good  management  on  deck. 

The  advertised  time  of  the  Crimea  boat  to  leave  Odessa  is  two 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  it  was  not  more  than  five  minutes 
past  two  when  our  lines  were  cast  off.     I  am  told  that  the  time 


REMINISCENCES    OF    THE    CRIMEAN    WAR.  95 

table  of  the  company  is  strictly  kept,  except  of  course,  in  case  of 
unforseen  accident. 

The  company  was  organized  after  the  Crimean  war,  and  has  de- 
veloped a  great  business.  The  repair-shops  are  at  Sevastopol, 
but  very  little  building  is  done  there.  All  or  nearly  all  the  large 
steamers  were  built  in  England.  The  officers  are  generally  ap- 
pointed from  the  navy,  and  their  pay  is  higher  than  in  the  regu- 
lar service.  On  one  of  the  steamers  I  encountered  an  officer, 
whose  acquaintance  I  had  made  in  the  Okhotsk  Sea  several  years 
before.  "  I  am  out  of  the  government  employ,"  he  said,  "  having 
served  my  full  term.  I  am  commanding  one  of  this  company's 
largest  steamers  now  ;  the  service  is  harder,  but  I  get  much  bet- 
ter pay  than  my  rank  in  the  navy  would  bring  me." 

The  steamer  carried  us  along  toward  Eupatoria,  and  I  was  up 
when  we  steamed  into  the  bay,  where  the  English  made  their 
first  descent  upon  the  Crimea.  There  are  no  docks  or  piers  ; 
nothing  but  a  semi-circular  beach,  like  a  bit  of  yellow  lace  on  the 
end  of  a  sleeve  to  a  lady's  dress,  and  an  irregular  double  fringe 
of  houses  beyond  it.  Ships  anchor  in  the  bay,  and  are  un- 
loaded by  lighters.  Our  passengers  were  taken  ashore  in  boats, 
and  the  freight  and  baggage  were  unceremoniously  dumped  into 
a  huge  launch.  Heavy  boxes  and  barrels  were  placed  atop  of 
trunks  and  valises,  and  there  was  a  general  mess  of  things. 

It  was  at  Eupatoria,  on  Thursday,  September  14th,  1854,  that 
the  allied  army  landed  in  the  Crimea.  The  place,  the  day,  and 
the  occasion  will  remain  for  ever  memorable  in  French,  English, 
and  Russian  history.  Fifty  thousand  soldiers  of  the  allied  army 
were  that  day  landed  on  Russian  soil  ;  of  that  fifty  thousand 
nearly  all  are  now  in  their  last  sleep.  They  perished  in  the  bat- 
tles of  the  Alma,  the  Tchernaya,  and  Inkermann  ;  they  fell  in 
the  trenches  during  the  siege  of  Sevastopol  ;  or  worn  out  with 
privation  and  exposure,  or  sviffering  from  wounds  and  disease, 
crept  on  board  the  transports  at  Balaklava  and  were  borne  away 
to  die  in  the  hospitals  of  Scutari  or  in  their  own  native  lands.  In 
one  year  from  that  memorable  landing  at  Eupatoria  the  fifty 
thousand  had  become  ten  thousand ;  and  when  the  bugles  sang 
truce  and  the  flag  of  peace  fluttered  over  the  shattered  walls  and 
smoking  ruins  of  Sevastopol,  there  was  scarce  a  vestige  remain- 


0,6  THE  BATTLE  GROUNDS  AROUND  SEVASTOPOL. 

ing  of  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Orient,  that  had  sailed  so  proudly . 
from  the  shores  of  France  and  England  and  assembled  on  Turk- 
ish soil  to  prepare  for  the  descent  into  the  Crimea.  Death  spared 
neither  rank  nor  condition.  Of  all  the  officers  and  soldiers  whose 
hearts  beat  high  on  that  day  as  they  saw  the  tri-color  and  the 
red  cross  waving  over  the  gravelly  beach  at  Eupatoria,  very  few 
are  now  alive. 

There  had  been  a  fog  in  the  morning,  and  occasional  spittings 
and  spatterings  of  rain,  but  it  cleared  up  soon  after  we  left  Eu- 
patoria, and  the  coast  of  the  Crimea,  with  serrated  mountains 
cutting  the  sky,  and  with  steppes  of  sand  and  white  rock  here 
and  there,  came  out  clear  and  distinct  beyond  the  dark  waters  of 
the  Euxine  Sea.  Gloriously  bright  was  the  sun  when  a  Russian 
officer  pointed  to  a  distant  promontory  and  told  me  that  there 
was  Sevastopol ;  and  deep  blue  was  the  sky,  with  not  a  patch  of 
cloud  to  mar  it,  when  we  headed  our  prow  toward  Fort  Constan- 
tine,  and  pushed  steadily  and  fearlessly  into  the  port  which  so 
long  resisted  the  assaults  of  the  allied  armies  of  England  and 
France.  Away  to  the  left  lay  the  valley  of  the  Alma,  and  also 
on  our  left,  but  nearer  to  us,  the  Inkermann  pyramid  was  visible 
to  mark  the  field  of  Inkermann's  battle.  White  specks  of  marble 
near  the  pyramid  marked  the  resting-place  of  England's  gallant 
dead,  and  not  far  distant  was  the  cemetery  where  lay  the  soldiers 
who  fell  there  for  the  glory  of  France.  In  front,  beyond  the 
harbor,  was  the  tawny  mound  of  the  Malakoff,  with  ugly  seams 
and  ridges  over  all  its  surface ;  beyond  it  were  the  Redan  and 
the  Mamelon  Vert,  and  away  to  the  right  was  the  famous  Bastion 
du  Mat.  The  white  walls  of  the  marine  barracks  and  arsenal 
filled  much  of  the  centre  of  the  picture,  far  too  much  for  Russian 
eyes,  when  it  is  remembered  that  they  were  the  walls  of  ruins. 

Forts  Constantine  and  Nicholas  are  passed;  no  gun  speaks 
from  their  walls,  and  not  a  soldier  is  visible  to  note  our  entrance. 
The  shattered  and  ruined  walls  of  these  forts  have  disappeared  ; 
the  present  fortresses  are  new,  or  at  any  rate  they  have  under- 
gone a  vast  amount  of  repairing  since  the  day  the  allies  left  Se- 
vastopol after  their  work  of  destruction  was  finished. 

We  steamed  up  to  the  stone  pier,  where  a  dense  crowd  was 
gathered  to  meet  us — in  the  foreground  the  officials  of  the  port, 


'DOING       SEVASTOPOL. 


97 


behind  them  the  well-dressed  part  of  the  community,  and  further 
away  the  wide-mouthed  and  sheepskin-coated  peasantry  of  Rus- 
sia. Our  guide-book  had  told  us  of  a  good  hotel  a  couple  of 
hundred  yards  from  the  landing,  and  as  soon  as  we  could  get 
ashore  we  went  to  it  at  a  respectable  pace.  A  crowd  of  hack- 
men  sought  to  entrap  us  into  riding,  but  we  disdained  their  offers. 
We  found  the  hotel,  and  after  selecting  rooms  and  fixing  the 
price,  we  proceeded  to  "  do  "  Sevastopol. 

"  Get  us  a  guide  at  once  and  a  carriage  for  three,"  I  said  to 
the  German-Russian  landlord,  who  spoke  English,  French,  or 
any  other  language  that 
you  might  choose  to  try 
him  in. 

He  sent  a  messenger 
to  bring  what  we 
wanted  and  then  asked 
where  we  wished  to  go. 
I  told  him  we  wished 
to  see  all  that  we  could 
that  afternoon,  and 
leave  in  the  morning 
for  Yalta.  He  men- 
tioned the  Malakoff, 
Redan,  Inkermann,  and 
other  points,  including 
the  cemetery,  and  I  in- 
terrupted him  with  : 

"  Never  mind  the  cemetery  ;  send  us  somewhere  else." 

"  Oh,  then  you  are  Americans,"  he  exclaimed  ;  "  every  Eng- 
lishman goes  at  once  to  the  cemetery,  and  it  is  the  first  thing  he 
asks  for;  but  an  American  always  says:'D — n  the  cemetery;  take 
me  somewhere  else.'" 

A  moment  later  he  apologized  for  his  intimation  that  my  coun- 
trymen were  universally  profane  ;  but  reiterated  his  assertion 
that  every  Englishman  visiting  Sevastopol  goes  at  once  to 
the  cemetery,  while  every  American  prefers  to  do  something 
else.  I  can  well  understand  this.  So  many  English  were  buried 
there,  that  every  British  visitor  is  sure  to  have  occasion  to  look 


SHIRKING   THE   CEMETERY. 


98  WHY    RUSSIA    WAS    DEFEATED. 

after  the  grave  of  a  relative  or  friend  ;  or,  at  all  events,  he  has 
been  requested  to  look  out  the  burial-place  of  somebody  and  re- 
port its  condition.  Few  Americans  are  likely  to  have  anything 
more  than  ordinary  curiosity  to  attract  them  to  the  cemetery  at 
Sevastopol. 

In  a  little  while  the  carriage  and  guide  were  ready,  and  we 
started.  The  guide  was  a  Greek — he  may  have  been  a  Greek 
brigand — who  had  not  been  long  in  Sevastopol,  and  didn't  know 
enough  about  the  place  to  hurt  himself  to  any  alarming  extent. 
He  spoke  English  fairly,  but  not  over  elegantly,  and  was,  on  the 
whole,  satisfactory. 

We  drove  off  along  the  street  leading  upward  from  the  hotel, 
and  in  the  direction  of  the  Malakoff  and  other  fortresses  of  the 
days  of  the  war.  We  were  soon  on  the  edge  of  the  bluff  over- 
looking the  southern  harbor,  and  could  gaze  down  almost  per- 
pendicularly on  the  ships  at  anchor  there.  As  we  looked  toward 
the  end  of  the  harbor,  we  discovered  just  beyond  it  a  new  build- 
ing, and  I  asked  what  it  was. 

"  That  is  the  railway  station,"  was  the  guide's  reply.  "  The 
government  is  building  a  railway  from  Sevastopol  to  connect 
with  the  line  from  the  Sea  of  Azof  to  Moscow  and  St.  Petersburg. 
They  have  surveyed  all  the  line,  and  a  good  deal  of  it  is  finished. 
They  are  going  to  lay  the  track  all  round  this  harbor,  so  that 
ships  can  be  loaded  right  from  the  trains  and  the  trains  from  .the 
ships." 

I  looked  and  saw  the  grading  ready  for  the  rails  on  both  sides 
of  the  harbor  and  sweeping  round  the  hill-side  toward  Inker- 
mann.  Had  this  railway  existed  twenty  years  ago  the  allies 
would  have  failed  to  capture  Sevastopol.  It  was  their  primitive 
mode  of  transportation  more  than  anything  else  that  caused 
Russia's  defeat.  She  learned  then  the  importance  of  railways, 
and  has  since  been  putting  her  knowledge  into  practice. 

We  climbed  to  the  top  of  the  Malakoff,  where  a  single  Rus- 
sian soldier  holds  peaceful  possession  of  what  thousands  were 
once  unable  to  defend.  From  the  summit  of  the  casemate  we 
looked  over  the  field,  traced  the  lines  of  the  contending  armies, 
and  then  turned  toward  Inkermann  and  the  defenses  in  that 
direction.     The  ground  all  round  is  cut  and  torn  with  rifle-pits, 


A    PICTURE    OF    DESOLATION.  99 

trenches,  approaches,  and  defenses,  and  is  a  picture  of  desolation. 
Sevastopol  is  a  mass  of  ruins  ;  its  inhabited  dwellings  are  not  a 
tenth  the  number  of  the  fallen  or  falling  walls,  and  you  can  ride 
or  walk  through  whole  squares  of  what  were  once  rows  of  hand- 
some edifices,  but  are  now  nothing  but  heaps  of  stones.  It  is 
more  like  Pompeii  than  any  modern  city  I  have  ever  seen. 

Sevastopol  must  have  been  beautiful  twenty  years  ago  ;  she  is 
the  reverse  of  beautiful  now,  and  I  do  not  wonder  that  the  Rus- 
sian who  walks  through  her  half  silent  and  almost  deserted 
streets  vows  with  compressed  lips  and  low^ering  brow  that  Se- 
vastopol must  be  avenged.  She  is  majestic  in  her  ruins.  One 
feels  her  greatness,  or  what  it  must  have  been,  at  every  step  he 
takes  ;  and  no  one  can  call  Russia  a  barbarous  nation  when  he 
looks  at  the  remains  of  her  dockyards,  which  were  her  pride  and 
glory.  To  destroy  these  docks  required  months  of  labor  on  the 
part  of  French  and  English  engineers.  What  must  have  been 
the  labor  to  create  them  ! 

There  had  been  much  talk  about  a  new  kind  of  gunboat  then 
at  Sevastopol,  and  by  the  kindness  of  Admiral  Popoff,  the  in- 
ventor of  the  system,  I  was  permitted  to  visit  and  examine  the 
Novgorod,  as  the  pioneer  vessel  is  called.  She  was  built  at  Ni- 
colayeff,  on  the  River  Bug,  and  was  brought  to  Sevastopol  to  be 
finished.  Another  boat  of  the  same  class,  but  larger,  to  be  called 
the  Popofka  was  under  construction,  and  intended  to  be  followed 
by  several  others.  The  Novgorod  is  something  like  our  mon- 
itors, though  with  a  difference.  When  the  original  Monitor 
came  out  we  were  told  to  imagine  a  cheese-box  on  a  raft ;  in  the 
present  instance  you  may  imagine  a"  cheese-box  without  any  raft. 
The  Novgorod  is  circular,  and  about  a  hundred  feet  in  diameter  ; 
her  sides  where  they  rise  above  the  water  are  perpendicular,  but 
they  do  not  rise  very  high — not  more  than  a  couple  of  feet. 
From  the  edge  toward  the  centre  there  is  a  gentle  incline,  and 
this  incline  is  covered  with  small  cleats  of  wood  to  enable  one 
to  preserve  his  foothold.  About  twenty-five  feet  from  the  edge 
there  is  a  circular  wall  of  iron,  fifteen  inches  thick,  forming  a 
turret  like  that  of  one  of  our  monitors.  This  turret  is  fixed  and 
made  as  firm  as  possible  ;  inside  of  it  is  a  movable  turret,  con- 
taining the  guns,  and  pierced  with  two  holes,  through  which  the 


ICX) 


WE    VISIT    A    REMARKABLE    GUNBOAT. 


guns  are  to  be  discharged.  The  turret  is  firmly  fastened  to  the 
platform  which  sustains  the  guns,  and  it  can  be  raised  or  lowered 
at  will  by  means  of  machinery.  The  guns  are  eleven-inch 
breech-loaders,  and  are  very  well  finished  ;  the  carriages  are  of 
an  improved  pattern,  and  altogether  the  turret  and  its  contents 
are  highly  creditable  to  their  designers  and  makers. 

Workmen  were  busy  both 
in  and  out  of  the  boat,  and 
there  was  an  unsatisfactory  lot 
of  fresh  paint  on  nearly  every- 
thing, so  that  it  was  necessary 
to  be  cautious  in  one's  move- 
ments. In  spite  of  all  my  at- 
tention I  found  myself  some- 
what soiled  at  the  end  of  my 
journey,  and  on  returning  to 
the  hotel  I  underwent  a  vigor- 
ous application  of  turpentine. 
Like  our  monitors,  the  Nov- 
gorod is  not  abundantly  sup- 
plied with  internal  space  for 
machinery,  coal,  ammunition, 
stores,  and  crew,  though  there 
is  more  of  it  than  one  might  at  first  suppose.  Her  circular 
shape  gives  her  an  advantage  in  this  respect,  and  it  is  really  sur- 
prising how  much  room  you  find  where  you  expect  so  little. 

As  you  descend  into  the  engine  room — her  engines  were  made 
by  Bird  of  St.  Petersburg-^you  find  the  machinery  stowed  so 
compactly  and  everywhere  around  you,  that  you  begin  to  think 
she  is  all  machinery  inside  like  a  watch,  but  when  you  are  taken 
thence  into  the  places  where  coal  and  provisions  are  stored,  you 
change  your  mind.  The  quarters  for  the  crew  are  cramped,  as 
in  all  ships  of  war,  and  occupy  about  the  same  space  relative  to 
the  officers'  quarters  as  on  our  monitors.  The  captain's  room  is 
quite  spacious  and  neatly  finished  and  furnished,  and  the  other 
officers  have  nothing  to  complain  of.  In  the  captain's  room  was 
a  model  of  the  boat,  and  I  studied  it  attentively  to  ascertain  the 
shape  of  the  craft  below  the  water  line.     The  boat  does  not  pre- 


"  FRESH    PAINT." 


PREPARATIONS    FOR    FIGHTING.  lOI 

serve  its  circular  form  all  the  way  down,  or  rather  I  should  say- 
that  the  circular  form  is  maintained  above  the  water  and  an 
elongated  one  below. 

Take  an  apple  and  cut  the  lower  two-thirds  of  it  so  as  to  give 
it  the  general  shape  of  a  ship  below  the  water  line,  and  you  have 
the  idea  of  the  general  external  shape  of  the  Novgorod.  She 
has  a  bow  and  stern  like  any  other  ship,  but  neither  of  them  is 
very  sharp.  If  you  look  for  fine  lines  like  those  of  a  clipper 
sailer  or  of  a  fast  steamship,  you  will  be  disappointed,  as  the 
Novgorod  is  not  designed  for  speed,  nor  as  a  general  thing,  for 
attack.  They  claim  that  she  can  steam  nine  knots  an  hour,  but 
her  steaming  qualities  have  never  been  fairly  tested.  She  is 
intended  for  coast  and  harbor  defence,  and  is  made  of  light  draft, 
ten  or  twelve  feet,  so  that  she  can  lie  out  of  the  reach  of  deep- 
draft  ships.  She  has  six  screws,  three  on  each  side  of  her  rud- 
der, and  by  working  the  triplets  in  opposite  directions  she  can 
be  turned  in  her  own  length,  or  rather  in  her  own  diameter.  The 
space  below  deck  is  lighted  by  means  of  a  grated  flooring  inside 
the  turret,  by  openings  in  the  deck.  Hatchways  at  several 
points  permit  of  ingress  and  egress,  and  are  so  arranged  that 
they  can  be  closed  whenever  necessary. 

So  much  for  the  general  description  of  the  boat.  Now  we 
come  to  the  fighting  business.  When  her  coal  and  stores  are 
all  on  board,  she  will  be  sunk  within  a  couple  of  feet  of  the 
water — that  is  to  say,  the  perpendicular  side  of  the  boat  will  rise 
about  two  feet  above  the  surface.  In  this  condition  she  can 
steam  to  her  destination  under  about  the  same  conditions  of 
safety  as  those  attending  our  monitors.  Looked  at  from  a  dis- 
tance she  will  appear  like  a  tea-saucer,  on  an  enormous  scale, 
turned  bottom  upward,  and  having  an  old  fashioned  pill-box  in 
the  centre.  In  ordinary  times  she  has  a  pair  of  smoke-stacks, 
one  on  each  side  of  her  turret,  but  these  are  made  telescopic  and 
will  be  lowered  out  of  sight  when  she  goes  into  action.  Then 
she  has  ventilators  which  also  disappear,  and  she  has  a  tempo- 
rary steering  house  on  deck  that  disappears  likewise.  In  action 
she  is  steered  from  the  inside  in  accordance  with  signals  given  by 
an  officer  in  a  reasonably  secure  little  lookout  box  in  front  of  the 
turret.     In  fact,  all  the  deck  apparatus  except  the  turret,  is  made 


I02  READY  FOR  THE  BATTLE. 

to  disappear  entirely  in  time  of  battle,  and  the  gunboat  is  as  plain 
as  the  wardrobe  of  a  country  clergyman  on  a  small  salary  which 
is  not  promptly  paid. 

Nothing  is  visible  when  the  boat  goes  into  battle  but  the 
sloping  deck  and  the  turret  above  it.  Indeed  there  is  not  much 
of  the  deck  visible,  as  the  boat  takes  in  water  enough  to  sink  her 
down,  so  that  all  the  perpendicular  side  and  some  of  her  sloping 
portion  is  below  the  surface.  The  fixed  turret  stands  up  in  the 
centre,  and  inside  of  it  is  the  movable  turret  containing  the  guns. 
This  is  kept  lowered  until  the  moment  for  firing ;  then  the  ma- 
chinery turns  it  round  in  the  required  direction,  and  raises  it  so 
that  the  holes  for  the  muzzles  of  the  guns  come  above  the  edge 
of  the  fixed  turret.  The  guns  are  run  out  till  their  muzzles  are 
even  with  the  outside  of  the  port-holes,  and  when  the  proper  aim 
is  obtained,  they  are  fired  and  instantly  lowered,  or  they  may  be 
kept  in  place  and  reloaded,  according  to  the  will  of  the  com- 
mander. They  are  handled,  so  to  speak,  by  machinery,  a  couple 
of  rods  in  the  hands  of  their  captain  performing  all  the  work  of 
aiming,  one  rod  serving  to  raise  and  depress  their  muzzles,  and 
another  to  move  the  turret  horizontally. 

Steam  has  been  brought  into  satisfactory  subjection  in  the 
Novgorod.  The  turret  is  controlled  and  the  guns  are  operated 
by  steam  ;  steam  propels  the  boat,  and  may  be  made  to  steer  it. 
Very  little  hand  labor  is  required,  and  the  boat  may  carry  fewer 
men  than  other  war-ships  of  her  capacity.  She  is  built  through- 
out in  the  strongest  manner,  and  her  constructors  are  very  proud 
of  her. 

For  harbor  and  coast  defence  they  claim  great  advantages 
over  the  old  style  of  war  ships,  and  I  was  told  that  it  was  the 
intention  of  the  government  to  build  a  considerable  number  of 
ships  of  the  Novgorod  pattern.  They  were  to  be  stationed  at 
the  ports  of  the  Black  Sea,  and  along  the  Baltic,  and  it  was 
thought  they  could  made  things  lively  for  a  blockading  squadron. 
•  The  Novgorod  was  of  a  hundred  and  the  Popofka  a  hundred 
and  twenty-five  feet  diameter ;  whether  the  others  would  be  of 
greater  or  less  size  I  am  unable  to  say.  Other  ships  of  war  are 
to  be  constructed  on  the  Black  sea,  and  in  course  of  time  the 
Russians  hope  to  bring  their  Black  Sea  fleet  up  to  something 


THE    ROOM    WHERE    KINGLAKE   WROTE.  10$ 

like  its  old  standard.  The  arsenal  at  Sevastopol  is  theoretically 
the  property  of  the  Russian  Company  of  Navigation  and  Com- 
merce, and  contains  their  repair  shops,  but  practically  it  is  the 
property  of  the  government,  and  will  be  more  and  more  so  as 
time  rolls  on. 

We  spent  the  evening  in  the  hotel  and  on  the  cliff  overlooking 
the  harbor,  and  tried  to  imagine  the  scenes  of  twenty  years  ago. 

"The  rocket's  red  glare  and  bombs  bursting  in  air"  have  ceased 
over  Sevastopol — let  us  hope  for  ever — and  all  was  calm  as  though 
the  spot  had  never  known  the  horrors  of  war.  The  loquacious 
landlord  told  us  many  stories  of  the  siege,  and  of  the  fortunes  of 
Sevastopol  before  and  since  the  war.  "  Now  we  are  to  have  bet- 
ter times,"  he  said  ;  "  the  railway  will  be  completed  next  year,  and 
we  shall  then  have  a  line  of  steamers  direct  to  Constantinople. 
Capitalists  are  coming  here  to  start  business,  and  we  shall  hope 
for  commercial  activity.  The  government  has  determined  that 
Sevastopol  shall  rise  again,  and  we  feel  sure  that  it  will  rise." 

Before  the  war  the  city  had  little  short  of  thirty  thousand  inhab- 
itants. Now  it  has  about  five  thousand,  but  the  number  is  slowly 
increasing.  With  a  revival  of  business  and  a  restoration  of  the 
naval  dockyard,  Sevastopol  will  resume  its  old  activity  and  impor- 
tance and  become  again  the  mistress  of  the  Euxine.  Her  har- 
bor is  one  of  the  finest  in  the  world,  and  her  geographical  posi- 
tion renders  it  of  great  value. 

The  landlord  escorted  me  to  my  room,  and  as  he  set  the  drip- 
ping and  guttering  candle  on  a  rickety  table,  his  loquacity  con- 
tinued : 

"  This,"  said  he,  "  is  the  room  that  was  occupied  by  Kinglake, 
when  he  came  here  to  study  the  siege  of  Sevastopol.  He  was  a 
good  fellow,  and,  when  he  left,  he  gave  my  daughter  a  new  sov- 
ereign and  she  has  kept  it  ever  since.  Of  course  you  have  read 
his  history  of  the  war  .''  Many  officers  who  come  here  say  he  has 
made  some  mistakes,  but  no  man  can  be  expected  to  get  every- 
thing right." 

I  went  to  sleep  and  dreamed  of  assaults  on  the  Malakoff  and 
Redan,  and  of  the  morning  when  the  grey  regiments  which  were 
Russia's  pride  and  glory  burst  through  the  pall  of  fog,  and  fell 
upon  the  unexpecting  allies  in  their  camp  at  Inkermann.     Clash 


104 


A   TARTAR    "jEHU. 


of  Steel,  roll  of  musketry,  and  the  diapason  of  artillery  resounded 
through  the  night  and  made  my  slumber  unrefreshing.  I  recalled 
the  time  when  the  whole  civilized  world  turned  its  eyes  upon  the 
Crimea,  and  with  what  an  electric  thrill  was  received  the  an- 
nouncement "  Sevastopol  has  fallen ! "  And  here  in  the  city, 
where  for  many  months  the  sounds  of  war  were  heard  almost 
without  cessation,  all  was  now  the  stillness  of  a  long  peace.  Wak- 
ing, I  could  hardly  realize  that  I  was  in  Sevastopol.  Sleeping, 
I  lived  again  in  the  midst  of  the  strife,  and  participated  in  the  ex- 
citing events  that  have  found  a  place  in  history. 


DRIVING   A  BARGAIN. 


In  the  morning  we  set  out  for  Yalta  in  a  carriage  which  we 
hired  of  an  enterprising  Tartar  who  demanded  his  pay  in  advance. 
He  demanded  and  we  refused,  and  the  more  he  wanted  his  money 
on  the  spot  the  more  he  didn't  get  it.  In  a  discussion  between 
Capital  and  Labor  the  former  generally  has  the  best  of  it,  and 
the  result  of  our  discussion  proved  no  exception  to  the  rule. 
Labor  was  compelled  to  accept  our  terms  and  receive  its  pay 
when  the  work  was  done,  but  it  required  a  good  half-hour  to 
bring  Labor  to  terms.  We  were  entrusted  to  the  care  of  a  good 
natured  but  rather  stupid  driver,  and  to  three  horses  harnessed 
abreast  and  full  of  energy.  We  trotted  out  of  the  ruin-lined 
streets,  and  soon  left  out  of  sight  the  most  famous  city  of  south- 
ern Russia. 

The  day  was  beautiful — a  sort  of  a  hazy  Indian-summer  sky — 
and  if  we  had  ordered  the  weather  to  suit  us  it  could  not  have 


DEEDS    OF    GLORY.  10$ 

been  more  delightful.  We  drove  through  the  field  of  Balaklava. 
How  few  there  are  now  living  of  those  who  made  Balaklava 
famous  ? 

We  made  a  brief  halt  at  the  edge  of  the  plain  where  the  im- 
mortal Light  Brigade  rode  to  glory  and  the  grave,  and  pressed 
unflinchingly  forward  as  the  pitiless  iron  from  Russian  batteries 
tore  through  their  ranks,  and  covered  the  ground  with  dead  and 
dying  heroes.  One  of  our  party  recited  Tennyson's  well-known 
poem  on  this  event,  and  I  think  we  all  felt,  down  to  the  depths  of 
our  hearts,  the  full  force  of  the  closing  lines  : 

"  Honor  the  brave  and  bold  ; 
Long  shall  the  tale  be  told, 
Yea,  when  our  babes  are  old, 

How  they  rode  onward. 
When  can  their  glory  fade  .-' 
O  !  the  wild  charge  they  made, 
Honor  the  Light  Brigade, 

Noble  Six  Hundred  !  " 

We  visited  the  little  village  of  Balaklava,  and  in  a  Russian  row- 
boat  paddled  in  the  miniature  land-locked  harbor  and  out  to  its  en- 
trance, where  we  danced  on  the  waves  that  rolled  inward  from  the 
sea.  Then  we  drove  to  Baidar,  a  miserable  village,  where  we  supped 
on  tea,  eggs,  and  bread,  and  breakfasted  on  eggs,  bread,  and  tea — 
nothing  else — and  slept  on  beds  of  the  most  impromptu  charac- 
ter. I  covered  myself  with  my  overcoat  and  travelling  shawl, 
the  Judge  solaced  himself  with  a  table-cloth  and  a  fish-net,  while 
the  "  Doubter"  was  kept  warm  by  a  late  copy  of  the  London  Times 
in  addition  to  his  overcoat.  It  was  a  rough  night,  and  we  were 
off  early  in  the  morning,  as,  indeed,  anybody  would  be  with  such 
accommodations.  If  you  want  to  get  a  man  up  in  good  season, 
put  him  to  sleep  on  a  pile  of  rocks,  or  a  bed  that  dates  from  the 
Silurian  period,  with  the  chief  qualities  of  roughness  and  solidity. 

The  "Doubter"  averred  his  belief  that  there  was  not  so  bad 
a  hotel  in  all  Russia  as  the  one  he  occupied  in  Baidar  ;  and  ever 
afterwards  when  we  wished  to  get  him  into  a  regular  cast-iron 
passion  we  had  only  to  refer  to  his  night's  lodging  in  the  interior 
of  the  Crimea.  And  I  really  think  that  he  was  unfairly  treated, 
as  the  Judge  afterward  made  confession  of  having  taken  away 


io6 


KEEPING   WARM    UNDER    DIFFICULTIES. 


the  full  sheet  of  the  Times  soon  after  they  retired,  thus  leaving 
the  "Doubter"  nothing  but  "the  supplement." 

An  hour  after  leaving  Baidar  we  passed  through  a  stone  gate- 
way, and  came  out  upon  the  sea.  Or,  rather,  we  came  out  upon 
the  edge  of  a  mountain,  and  looked  down  more  than  a  thousand 
feet  upon  the  waters  kissed  by  the  rising  sun,  and  broken  into 
little  billows  just  touched  with  crests  of  foam  by  a  gentle  breeze 
from  the  east.  Away  on  the  horizon  and  below  our  line  of  sight 
lay  a  stratum  of  white  clouds,  and  in  the  far  distance  to  the  left 
the  wind  and  sun  were  chasing  away  the  remains  of  the  darkness 
of  the  November  night,  and  near  at  hand  on  the  ri£;ht  and  left 


A  NIGHT  AT   BAIDAR. 


lay  the  mountains  with  great,  rugged  tops,  round  which  half  a 
dozen  eagles  were  whirling  and  occasionally  disappearing  in  the 
floating  masses  of  light  clouds.  Down  below,  toward  the  upper 
part  of  the  peninsula,  the  mountains  sloped  away  but  so  slightly 
as  to  make  us  wonder  how  we  would  find  a  passage  among  them. 
I  have  become  familiar  with  a  good  deal  of  scenery  in  the  past 
twenty  years,  but  I  know  few  things  that  can  surpass  this  first 
view  of  the  sea  on  the  road  from  Sevastopol  to  Yalta.  The  scene 
bursts  suddenly  upon  you.  At  one  minute  you  are  among  the 
hills  and  forests  and  sparsely  scattered  fields,  where  you  have  been 
travelling  ever  since  you  left  Balaklava,  and  you  are  voting  the 


V  PICTURESQUE    SCENERY.  10/ 

whole  thing  a  trifle  monotonous.  You  pass  through  the  gate- 
way, which  is  arched  and  bastioned  like  a  small  fortress,  and 
what  a  change  in  the  picture  !  You  are  in  a  narrow  road,  with 
scarcely  sufficient  standing  place  for  the  carriage  and  horses  ; 
the  crag  at  your  left  seems  ready  to  topple  over  and  cover  you, 
and  as  you  look  up  a  thousand  or  twelve  hundred  feet  along  its 
gray  sides,  you  perceive  deep  and  irregular  fissures  in  which, 
here  and  there,  trees  are  clinging  quite  safe  from  the  woodman's 
axe,  and  forming  a  secure  resting  for  the  eagles  that  circle 
about  them.  Their  prevailing  grey  color  is  diversified  by  the 
tints  peculiar  to  volcanic  rocks  everywhere,  and  they  cut  the  sky 
with  a  sharp  and  jagged  outline  whose  every  angle  is  rendered 
more  distinct  by  the  great  elevation  to  which  the  mountains  rise 
above  you.  This  mountain-chain  stretches  about  thirtv  miles 
along  the  coast ;  it  stands  bold  and  upright  from  the  sea  above 
Balaklava,  but  gradually  trends  away  from  the  water  until,  at 
Yalta,  it  is  more  than  five  miles  distant. 

Here,  at  the  Baidar-gate,  the  strip  of  land  is  nearly  a  mile 
wide,  but  as  you  look  down  the  dizzy  distance  you  could  solemnly 
aver  that  the  width  is  not  more  than  a  hundred  yards.  The  strip 
of  land  shelves  rapidly,  and  is  dotted  with  patches  of  forest, 
rough  boulders,  and  the  general  debris  of  the  mountain-chain, 
and  stippled  and  streaked  with  little  rivulets  that  trickle  onward 
toward  the  sea.  There  are  sharp  ridges  and  deep  ravines,  bar- 
ren patches  and  woody  dells  ;  the  whole  forming  a  favorite  resort 
of  the  game-birds  and  the  beasts  that  make  this  region  an  at- 
tractive one  for  the  hunter. 

Here  and  there  you  see  a  house  nestling  and  crouching  in  a 
lovely  valley,  and  as  you  proceed  on  your  way  you  find  the  houses 
and  villas  becoming  every  hour  more  and  more  numerous.  The 
high  cliffs  shelter  the  land  from  northerly  winds,  and  as  the  sun 
pours  full  and  strong  over  the  sea,  a  climate  of  peculiar  warmth 
is  developed  that  gives  this  part  of  the  Crimea  a  fertility  of 
almost  tropical  luxuriance.  The  productions  of  this  region  are  of 
wonderful  variety  and  excellence. 

We  whirled  down  and  along  the  front  of  the  mountains,  hour 
after  hour,  and  with  new  combinations  of  land  and  ocean  con- 
stantly presented  to  our  eyes.  We  halted  at  Alupka,  where  is 
the  palace  of  Prince  Woronzoff,  and  at  the  hotel  we  had  a  com- 


io8 


ECCENTRICITIES    OF    A    SELFISH    MAN. 


fortable  meal,  which  our  morning  ride  had  prepared  us  to  enjoy. 
We  washed  it  down  with  the  excellent  wine  of  the  Crimea,  bear- 
ing the  Woronzoff  brand,  and  grown  in  the  vineyards  that  dot  all 
the  hill-sides  in  the  last  dozen  miles  of  our  drive.  After  a  two 
hours'  halt  we  were  on  the  road  again,  and  passing  the  palace  of 
Livadia,  the  summer  residence  of  the  Emperor,  and  one  of  the 
prettiest  spots  in  the  world,  we  reached  Yalta  an  hour  before 
sunset,  having  made  one  of  the  most  delightful  rides  that  can  fall 
to  the  lot  of  the  traveller. 

Yalta  is  the  Long  Branch  or  Newport  o^  Southern  Russia, 
and  many  persons  go  there  to  spend  the  summer  and  autumn. 
The  situation  is  charming  and  the  climate  delicious  ;  the  Em- 
peror has  a  palace  close  at  hand,  and  as  he  spends  every  autumn 
there,  it  is  no  wonder  that  Yalta  has  become  fashionable.  The 
principal  street  along  the  sea-shore  has  a  fringe  of  hotels,  and  so 
great  was  the  rush  at  the  time  of  our  visit,  that  there  was  a  dif- 
ficulty in  obtaining  rooms.  Prices  were  high,  and  from  a  con- 
templation of  the  bill  of  fare,  I  should  think  the  hotel-keepers  were 
anxious  to  make  a  fortune  in  a  short  time  and  retire  from  business. 

Picturesque  Russians 
and  Crim-Tartars  wan- 
der through  the  streets, 
making  a  marked  con- 
trast to  the  fashionables 
from  Odessa  and  Mos- 
cow. In  the  market  the 
"Doubter"  got  into 
trouble  by  handling  and 
tasting  some  fruit,  and 
was  compelled  to  buy  it 
in  order  to  get  out  of  the 
scrape.  He  had  an  in- 
ordinate passion  for 
handling  everything  (ex- 
cept his  own  money  when 
bills  were  to  be  paid)  and  this  propensity  served  sometimes  to 
increase  our  annoyances,  and  occasionally  our  expenses.  At 
a   church    in   Odessa    he    broke    a    part    of    the    fixtures    on 


cauc;ht  in  the  act. 


'SMELLING,    TASTING,    AND    FEELING, 


109 


the  altar  because  he  insisted  upon  picking  them  up,  and  he 
only  escaped  trmible  by  pretending  not  to  understand  what  was 
said  to  him.  He  didn't  rely  much  on  his  senses  of  hearing  and 
seeing,  but  when  it  came  to  smelling,  tasting,  and  feeling — par- 
ticularly the  latter — he  was  on  hand.  He  wasn't  satisfied  with 
seeing  a  picture  but  he  must  feel  it  and  smell  it,  and  not;^  till  then 
did  he  believe  in  its  existence.  The  same  was  the  case  with 
nearly  everything  else  that  could  be  touched  ;  and  when  he  saw 
things  in  a  show-case  he  wanted  them  opened  for  his  amuse- 
ment and  manipulation.  During  his  journey  in  the  East  he 
felt  nearly  everything  within  his  reach,  except  an  impulse  of 
generosity,  and  with  that  he  had  no  desire  to  become  acquainted. 
We  rose  early  in  Yalta,  and  were  off  for  Odessa,  where  we 
arrived  without  accident  or  delay.  \, 


CHAPTER     VI. 


ACROSS     THE     BLACK     SEA. 


A  Visit  to  a  Russian  Police  Office — Smith,  and  what  he  did — A  bad  lot  of  passports 
— A  race  after  a  Governor  in  a  Drosky — More  Backsheesh — Delicate  administra- 
tion of  a  bribe — An  obliging  subordinate — Attempt  at  a  swindle — Scraping  an 
acquaintance — High  life  on  the  Black  Sea — Muscovite  ladies — Sunrise  on  the 
Euxine — Worshipping  the  Sun — Stamboul — Passing  Quarantine — On  the  Bospho- 
rus — A  magnificent  spectacle — The  Castle  of  Europe — Palaces  and  Villas — Domes 
and  Minarets — The  Golden  Horn — In  front  of  Constantinople — Rapacity  of 
Boatmen — Turkish  Thieves — Streets  of  the  City. 

THERE  is  nothing  very  interesting  about  Odessa,  for  the  rea- 
son that  it  is  a  place  of  no  antiquity. 

At  the  end  of  the  last  century  it  was  a  Tartar  village  bearing 
the  name  of  Hadji  Bey,  and  containing  a  dozen  houses  and  a 
small  fortress  of  Turkish  construction.  Now  it  is  a  grand  city 
with  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  inhabitants,  and  having  an  ex- 
tensive commerce.  Ships  of  all  nations  lie  at  its  wharves,  and 
you  see  English,  French,  American,  and  nearly  all  other  foreign 
names  among  the  merchants  established  there.  Its  greatest  ex- 
port-commerce is  in  wheat,  which  goes  from  Odessa  to  all  parts 
of  the  Mediterranean  and  also  to  England. 

The  Black  Sea  wheat  formerly  found  a  market  in  America, 
but  we  have  changed  all  that  with  our  immense  grain  production 
in  the  West  and  California. 

It  was  no  small  matter  to  get  out  of  Russia.  I  sent  the  pass- 
ports of  our  party  to  the  police-bureau  on  Thursday — two  days 
before  the  time  set  for  our  departure — and  was  told  that  they 
were  en  regie  for  the  journey  to  Constantinople.     Saturday  morn- 

1(1 10) 


SMITH,    AND    WHAT    HE    DID.  Ill 

ing  I  paid  a  visit  of  politeness  to  the  Americaa  consul,  Mr. 
Smith,  and  just  as  I  was  leaving  him  he  asked  if  he  could  be  of 
any  service. 

"  Thank  you,"  I  replied,  "  I  know  of  nothing  you  can  do  for 
me  except  to  follow  me  with  your  good  wishes.  I  don't  want  to 
borrow  any  money  nor  obtain  an  introduction  to  any  official." 

"  Have  you  arranged  your  passports  ?" 

"  O,  yes,"  I  answered  with  a  confident  smile.  "  I  have  trav- 
elled too  much  to  neglect  any  of  the  formalities.  The  clerk  of 
the  hotel  sent  our  passports  to  the  police  and  had  the  proper 
visas  attached." 

"  As  I  spoke  I  took  my  passport  from  my  pocket,  and  handed 
it  over  with  an  air  of  triumph. 

He  unfolded  the  document  and  examined  it.  His  turn  wa-s  to 
smile  now,  and  he  "  smole." 

"  All  wrong,  my  dear  sir,"  he  said,  "  there  is  no  visa  for  de- 
parture ;  nothing  but  the  visa  fojir  eu^rer  a.nd  the  visa  de  sejoicr." 

Here  was  a  pretty  caldron  of  piscatorial  products.  It  was  one 
o'clock,  and  the  steamer  was  to  sail  at  four  ;  it  was  Saturday 
afternoon,  and  the  police-bureau  closed  at  twelve  o'clock  on  the 
last  day  of  the  week. 

"  I  will  endeavor  to  get  you  out  of  your  trouble,"  said  the  kind 
hearted  Smith — I  wish  all  Smiths  were  like  him  and  the  world 
would  then  be  much  better  off  than  it  is — "  we  will  jump  into  a 
drosky  and  do  some  fast  driving  ;  and  as  I  know  the  Governor 
and  the  Police-Master  I  think  the  matter  can  be  fixed." 

We  hired  a  drosky  and  told  the  driver  to  put  in  his  best  licks 
and  he  might  expect  something  to  get  drunk  on.  This  appeal  to 
the  noble  sentiments  of  an  isvoshchik's  heart  roused  his  ambi- 
tion and  he  put  in  the  "  licks"  aforesaid,  with  a  whip  weighing 
about  three  pounds  in  the  handle  and  two  in  the  lash.  We  went 
forward  as  if  impelled  by  the  boot  of  His  Brimstonic  Majesty, 
and  as  the  narrow  drosky  bounded  from  side  to  side  the  two  pas- 
sengers had  hard  work  to  hold  on. 

We  were  soon  at  the  Governor's,  and  entered  a  room  filled 
with  a  crowd  of  all  sorts  of  people,  some  dirty,  some  dirtier,  and 
some  dirtiest,  and  a  few  looking  clean  and  respectable.  The 
Consul  gave  his  name  and  rank  to  a  soldier  who  disappeared 


112 


AN    AMIABLE   RUSSIAN. 


through  a  narrow  doorway  and  soon  returned  to  escort  us  into 
the  gubernatorial  presence. 

The  governor  was  a  well-proportioned  man  of  fifty-five  or  sixty 
years,  with  white  hair,  a  clean-shaven  face,  and  regular,  pleasing 
features.  He  was  in  civilian  dress,  and  his  manners  were  easy 
and  unaffected  like  those  of  the  higher  class  of  Russians  gener- 
ally. In  his  presence  one  might  easily  forget  the  official  in  the 
kind  and  courteous  gentleman.  If  he  had  an  iron  hand,  it  was 
most  skillfully  covered  with  velvet.  Napoleon  said,  "  Scratch  a 
Russian  and  you  will  find  a  Tartar."     That  may  be  so,  but  it  is 


PUTTING   IN    HIS   "BEST   LICKS." 

unnecessary  to  indulge  in  scratching  when  the  Russian  is  as 
amiable  as  we  generally  find  him.  It  is  like  removing  the  paint 
from  a  beautiful  picture  to  get  at  the  rough  canvas. 

The  case  was  stated  to  His  Excellency,  and  we  obtained  a  note 
requesting  the  police  to  attend  to  the  matter  and  put  the  pass- 
ports in  order,  if  there  was  no  objection.  "  I  shall  be  at  the 
steamer,"  said  the  Governor,  "  as  my  sister  is  to  be  one  of  the 
passengers,  and  should  there  be  any  trouble,  please  tell  me."  We 
bowed  ourselves  out  and  were  off. 

The  Turkish  consulate  was  close  at  hand,  and  so  we  halted 
there  and  obtained  the  visa  to  enter  the  Ottoman  Empire,  not 


BLARNEY   AND    BACKSHEESH. 


"3 


necessary,  but  a  good  thing  to  have.  It  might  be  compared  to 
some  of  the  quack  medicines  of  the  present  day — warranted  not 
to  harm  the  patient  even  if  they  do  not  benefit  him. 

At  the  police-bureau  the  chief  was  absent,  but  his  second  in 
command  happened  to  be  in.  He  spoke  French  fluently,  and 
when  I  had  told  him  that  it  was  no  fault  of  mine,  but  the  care- 
lessness or  downright  dishonesty  of  the  hotel-clerk  that  had 
brought  us  into  trouble,  he  said  he  would  see  what  could  be  done. 
The  office  was  technically  "  closed,"  but  the  Consul  had  influence 
enough  to  gain  admission,  and  I  had  faith  that  blarney  and  "back- 
sheesh," especially  the  latter,  would  do  the  rest. 

We  were  referred  to  a  subordinate,  a  seedy  and  decayed  party 
who  looked  as  if  he  had  a  large  family  and  proportionately  small 
pay.  I  thought  here  was  a  case  of  putting  something  where  it 
would  do  the  most  good,  and  intimated  as  much  to  the  Consul. 

"  Yes,  that  will  be  right,"  replied  Smith ;  "  do  as  you  please, 
but  I  must  not  know  about  it." 

While  the  subordinate  was  intimating  that  office  hours  were 
over  and  he  could  do  nothing,  I  handed  him  the  three  passports 
and  with  them  as 
many  roubles.  As 
his  fingers  closed  on 
them  he  smiled 
sweetly,and  no  doubt 
thought  of  his  fam- 
ily and  the  comforts 
this  honestly  earned 
money  would  pro- 
cure for  them. 

He  opened  one  of 
the  passports,  and 
with  an  exclamation 
that  amounted  to 
"Really  I  did  not 
understand  how  it 
was,"  sat  down  at 
his  desk. 

In  a  quarter  of  an  hour  the  passports  were  all  en  regie;  I  was 
8 


"backsheesh." 


114  '^'^    ATTEMPTED    SWINDLE, 

happy,  Smith  was  happy,  and  the  subordinate  was  happy.  We 
went  to  the  hotel,  where  the  Consul  took  a  parting  glass  of  wine 
with  us,  received  our  thanks  and  we  his  blessing.  Then  we  paid 
our  bill  and  went  to  the  steamer. 

I  am  unable  to  say  whether  the  clerk  of  the  hotel  was  grossly 
careless  or  dishonest.  Had  we  gone  on  board  with  our  passports 
as  he  returned  them  to  us,  we  should  have  been  liable  to  deten- 
tion until  the  next  steamer,  three  days  later.  In  that  case  the 
hotel  might  have  profited  by  our  enforced  delay,  and  I  have  a 
strong  suspicion  that  the  fellow  had  an  eye  to  business  and  de- 
liberately deceived  us.  I  expressed  my  opinion  of  the  whole 
affair,  and  we  did  not  part  friends. 

The  steamer  sailed  exactly  thirty-five  seconds  after  her  adver- 
tised time,  an  example  of  promptness  worthy  of  imitation.  She 
was  an  English-built  ship,  belonging  to  the  Russian  Company  of 
Navigation  and  Commerce,  and  rejoiced  in  the  name  of  Elborus. 
Officers  and  crew  were  Russian,  with  the  possible  exception  of 
the  chief  engineer. 

We  had  a  motley  crowd  of  passengers  in  the  cabin.  We  were 
three  Americans,  and  there  was  a  fourth — a  native  of  the  land 
of  the  free — a  woman  whose  talkative  power  was  sufficient  to  bore 
a  tunnel  through  Mount  Washington,  and  whose  mission  was  lit- 
erature and  matrimony.  She  was  en  route  to  Constantinople  to 
marry  a  Turk,  but  I  afterwards  learned  that  she  changed  her 
mind  and  married  a  Greek.  Then  there  were  two  or  three 
Englishmen  travelling  for  pleasure,  several  Swiss,  German,  and 
French  merchants  and  commercial  travellers,  all  of  them  chatty 
and  most  of  them  agreeable,  and  there  were  half  a  dozen  Russians, 
mostly  of  the  gentler  sex. 

We  had  not  been  many  hours  at  sea  before  a  majority  of  the 
passengers  were  on  speaking  terms,  and  even  endeavoring  to 
make  the  time  pass  pleasantly.  There  was  no  distinction  of  age 
or  sex  in  conversation  ;  everybody  was  polite,  and  nobody  took 
offence  at  being  addressed  without  the  formality  of  an  introduc- 
tion. Nowhere  in  the  world  will  you  find  travellers  more  civil  to 
each  other  than  on  the  steamers  which  plough  the  waters  of  the 
Orient. 

Among  the  Russian  passengers  were  three  ladies  (mother  and 
daughters)  from  St.  Petersburgh,  sister  and  nieces  of  the  Governor 


RUSSIAN    VERSUS   AMERICAN    SOCIETY.  II5 

of  Odessa.  The  younger  of  the  daughters  was  a  Lady  of  Honor 
at  the  court  of  the  Empress,  and  the  family  evidently  belonged 
to  the  haute  noblesse  of  Russia. 

If  anybody  fancies  that  the  high  society  of  Russia  is  at  all 
"  stuck  up,"  like  some  of  our  American  aristocrats,  he  would 
have  been  enlightened  very  materially  had  he  made  the  voyage 
with  that  party.  There  was  no  forwardness  or  pertness  on  the 
part  of  the  young  ladies,  neither  was  there  any  frigid  reserve  or 
maiivaise  honte.  They  conversed  easily  and  with  perfect  self- 
possession,  and  when  one  of  the  passengers  produced  a  variety 
of  mechanical  puzzles  for  the  amusement  of  the  party,  they 
readily  joined  in  the  sport.  If  they  were  brought  up  at  boarding 
and  finishing  schools  I  must  admit  that  the  Russian  educational 
establishments  are  more  successful  in  their  work  than  the  major- 
ity of  their  American  and  English  rivals. 

The  deck  was  crowded  with  third-class  passengers,  the  majority 
of  them  being  Russian  pilgrims  on  their  way  to  Jerusalem.  Two 
priests  were  with  them,  and  they  held  frequent  service,  in  which 
all  the  members  of  their  flock  joined.  One  of  these  services, 
which  I  happened  to  witness,  was  peculiarly  impressive. 

The  after  saloon  was  on  a  level  with  the  main  deck,  and  conse- 
quently its  roof,  which  formed  our  promenade,  looked  down  upon 
the  humbler  part  of  the  ship.  The  first  morning  out,  I  rose  with 
the  dawn  and  went  above.  The  sea  was  calm  and  smooth  almost 
to  glassiness  ;  there  was  not  a  breath  of  wind  nor  the  least  feather 
of  cloud  or  fog.  Most  of  the  stars  had  been  paled  by  the  light 
of  the  coming  day  ;  only  a  few  were  twinkling  here  and  there  as 
if  struggling  to  maintain  their  existence  as  long  as  it  were  possi- 
ble. They  slowly  faded  and  disappeared  as  the  gleam  of  gold  on 
the  eastern  horizon  spread  outward  and  upward,  and  betokened 
the  approach  of  the  sun.  By-and-by  a  rim  of  fire  appeared,  and 
each  moment  grew  larger  till  at  last  the  full  circle  of  light  and 
heat  was  revealed  above  the  sea.  It  was  sunrise  on  the  water, 
duller  and  tamer  perhaps  than  in  the  midst  of  high  waves,  fierce 
winds,  and  fleecy  clouds,  but  still  a  sunrise  of  great  beauty. 

A  few  minutes  after  I  went  on  deck  the  pilgrims  assembled 
for  service.  The  priests  read  the  prayers  in  full,  sonorous  tones, 
and  the  people  bowed  or  knelt  in  unison,  in  accordance  with  the 


ii6 


ENTERING    THE    BOSPHORUS, 


formula  of  the  Graico-Russian  Church.  With  their  faces  tow- 
ards the  east,  they  seemed  to  be  sahiting  the  rising  sun,  and  it 
would  have  needed  little  play  of  imagination  to  picture  them  as 
pagan  fire-worshippers  instead  of  devout  followers  of  Christ. 
The  sun  slowly  rose  while  the  service  was  in  progress,  and  when 
the  prayers  were  concluded  his  entire  disk  was  above  the  horizon. 
A  scene  of  worship  more  impressive  than  this  it  has  rarely  been 
my  fortune  to  witness. 

In  good  weather  a  steamer  of  ordinary  speed  can  make  the  run 
from  Odessa  to  Constantinople  in  about  forty  hours.     At  daylight 


AN    IMPRESSIVE   SCENE. 


on  the  second  morning  we  were  at  the  entrance  of  the  Bosphorus, 
but  it  was  still  so  dark  that  we  could  see  little  more  than  the 
lighthouses  and  a  very  dim  outline  of  the  forts  that  command  the 
passage. 

Just  inside  the  entrance  we  cast  anchor  and  waited  for  the 
visit  of  the  health  officer.  Until  this  was  obtained  we  could  go 
no  farther,  and  hold  no  communication  with  the  shore.  The 
quarantine  regulations  in  the  Orient  are  very  rigid,  and  the  least 
violation  of  them  subjects  the  offender  to  severe  penalties. 

The  health  officer  came  at  six  o'clock,  and  after  a  brief  inspec- 
tion granted  us  a  clean  bill  of  health.     Then  we  might  have  gone 


ON    THE    BOSPHORUS.  11/ 

on,  but  a  tantalizing  fog  made  its  appearance  and  delayed  us  an 
hour  or  more.  Then  it  lifted  a  little  and  soon  shut  down,  and  it 
kept  lifting  and  shutting  alternately,  so  that  we  anchored  twice 
afterwards ;  drifted  some  of  the  time,  and  moved  very  slowly  for 
the  rest  of  our  way. 

It  was  a  disappointment  to  nearly  all  of  us,  for  we  had  great 
anxiety  to  see  the  shores  of  the  Bosphorus,  about  whose  beauty 
we  had  heard  so  much.  We  had  now  and  then  a  slight  glimpse — 
all  the  more  aggravating — but  did  not  get  a  fair  view  of  the 
shores  until  we  were  in  sight  of  the  great  city. 

Some  days  later,  when  the  sky  was  clear  and  the  air  soft,  I 
made  a  journey  on  the  Bosphorus,  as  I  was  determined  not  to 
miss  it. 

The  length  of  the  Bosphorus  from  the  Black  Sea  to  the  Sea 
of  Marmora  is  a  little  more  than  twenty  miles,  as  a  ship  runs 
through  ;  the  shores  are  longer  owing  to  their  sinuosity.  The 
strait  is  supposed  to  have  been  formed  by  an  earthquake,  as 
there  is  a  similarity  in  the  rocks  of  the  two  shores,  and  further- 
more, there  are  on  each  side  seven  promontories  corresponding 
to  as  many  bays  opposite.  Its  width  at  the  narrowest  point  is 
about  six  hundred  yards,  and  it  enlarges  in  places  to  eight  hun- 
dred, a  thousand,  fifteen  hundred,  two  thousand,  and  twenty-five 
hundred  yards.  In  the  Gulfs  of  Bey-Kos  and  Buyuk-Dere  it  is 
more  than  three  thousand  yards  wide. 

The  pen  may  give  the  figures  that  indicate  the  distances  and 
heights,  and  depths,  but  no  pen  can  give  an  adequate  description 
of  the  pictures  presented  by  the  shores  of  the  Bosphorus. 

As  we  enter  from  the  Black  Sea  we  pass  between  the  two 
castles,  the  one  of  Europe  and  the  other  of  Asia.  The  hills  are 
steep  and  rugged,  and  appear  capable  of  easy  defence  ;  as  we 
move  along  we  have  a  succession  of  crags  and  rocks  and  forests ; 
of  villages,  chateaux,  and  palaces  in  such  profusion  that  we 
should  be  wearied  were  it  not  for  the  great  beauty  of  the  scene. 
For  several  miles  the  Asiatic  side  is  but  thinly  inhabited,  and  the 
shore  appears  almost  in  its  primitive  condition.  There  is  little 
else  than  mountains  and  gorges,  lonely  valleys,  deep  set  and 
secluded,  forests  of  varying  colors  fringing  the  cliffs  and  climbing 
the  sloping  sides  of  the  hills,  and  below  them  the  dark  water  in 
which  the  whole  picture  is  at  times  reflected. 


Il8  A    CHARMING    PLEASURE    RESORT. 

On  the  European  side  the  tableau  is  much  the  same  for  only  a 
mile  or  so.  Then  begins  a  succession  of  edifices  that  show  how- 
much  the  progress  of  settlement  has  clung  to  the  northern  shore. 
Village  after  village,  palace  after  palace,  follow  in  such  rapid 
succession  that  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  them  little  else  than  a 
continuous  line,  which  they  indeed  become,  long  before  the  towers 
and  domes  and  minarets  of  the  city  come  into  sight.  The  irre- 
gularity of  the  shores  adds  to  the  picturesque  effect  ;  were  they 
straight  like  the  banks  of  an  artificial  canal,  much  of  their  beauty 
would  be  lost. 

The  real  luxury  of  architecture  on  the  Bosphorus,  as  we  ap- 
proach from  the  Black  Sea,  begins  at  Buyuk-Dere.  This  place 
has  been  called  the  most  charming  pleasure  resort  in  the  world. 
I  am  hardly  prepared  to  endorse  that  opinion,  but  am  willing  to 
say  it  is  one  of  the  prettiest  I  have  ever  seen.  Several  of  the 
foreign  embassies  have  their  summer  residences  here,  and  their 
palaces  are  quite  prominent ;  the  rich  merchants  of  Constan- 
tinople dwell  there  in  considerable  numbers,  and  have  fitted  up 
their  houses  with  very  little  regard  for  expense.  The  houses 
skirt  the  shore,  and  some  of  them  climb  the  hills  in  terraces  ; 
there  are  groves  of  trees  and  a  fine  promenade  near  the  water, 
so  that  the  combined  effect  is  very  pretty.  From  here,  as  we  go 
on,  there  is  an  uninterrupted  succession  of  villages  and  palaces, 
whose  names  would  be  almost  meaningless,  but  whose  beauty  as 
we  view  them  from  the  water  can  never  be  forgotten. 

By-and-by  the  fringe  of  villages  becomes  larger  and  deeper, 
and  we  are  told  that  Constantinople  is  in  sight.  Its  hills  rise 
steeply  so  that  the  houses  seem  tost  and  in  terraces  ;  their  vary- 
ing colors  appear  as  numerous  as  those  of  the  kaleidoscope,  and 
the  domes  and  minarets  that  crown  many  of  the  elevations  give 
the  picture  an  emphatically  oriental  tinge.  We  are  in  front  of 
the  entrance  to  the  Golden  Horn  with  Pera  and  Golata  on  our 
right,  and  Stamboul,  with  its  Seraglio  Point,  crowned  with  the 
dome  of  Santa  Sophia  on  our  left.  Beyond  are  the  waves  of  the 
Sea  of  Marmora,  and  as  we  look  over  them  the  Isles  of  the 
Princes  rise  between  us  and  the  horizon. 

The  harbor  is  dotted  with  shipping,  and  scores  of  restless 
steamers  dart  to  and  fro  with  their  cargoes  of  passengers.     Hun- 


mk 


\ 


?^ 


BESET    BY    RIVER-THIEVES.  121 

dreds  of  caiques  and  other  row  boats  are  visible,  and  as  our 
steamer  drops  her  anchor,  they  throng  around  her  in  great  num- 
bers. The  boatmen  shout  and  gesticulate  and  push  and  fight, 
until  they  give  us  a  fair  indication  of  what  the  tower  of  Babel 
might  have  been  just  before  the  suspension  of  work  on  that 
edifice.  Occasionally  one  of  them  falls  into  the  water,  but  he 
is  soon  out  again  and  shouting  as  wildly  as  ever.  Evidently  we 
shall  not  lack  conveyance  to  the  shore.  The  boatmen  are  a 
heterogeneous  lot.  They  are  Turks,  Arabs,  Maltese,  Greeks, 
Italians,  French,  and  Syrians,  and  there  are  many  who  would  be 
unable,  and  others  unwilling,  to  state  their  nationality.  They 
are  a  picturesque  crowd  of  thieves,  most  of  them  wearing  the 
oriental  dress,  speaking  a  jargon  of  Italian  and  Greek  and  Turk- 
ish, with  now  and  then  one  who  has  picked  up  a  little  English. 
They  are  difficult  to  manage,  and  not  unfrequently,  when  they 
are  out  of  sight  of  the  police,  indulge  in  robbing  solitar)'  pas- 
sengers who  engage  them  for  journeys  up  and  down  the  shores 
of  the  Bosphorus. 

After  running  the  gauntlet  of  the  custom-house  at  Constanti- 
nople, we  are  at  liberty  to  make  our  way  to  the  hotels.  All 
hotels  are  in  the  Pera  quarter,  on  the  east  side  of  the  Golden 
Horn,  and  there  are  always  several  runners  for  each  establish- 
ment that  board  the  steamer  as  soon  as  her  anchor  is  down,  and 
are  ready  to  carry  passengers  and  their  baggage  to  the  hostel- 
ries.  No  matter  what  hotel  you  intend  to  patronize,  you  are 
conducted  up  the  steep  hill,  on  whose  elongated  top  the  Grand 
Rue  de  Pera  is  situated. 

You  find  that  the  street  is  very  narrow  and  very  dirty,  even 
though  a  prolonged  residence  in  New  York  may  have  given  you 
modified  notions  about  the  ordinary  condition  of  metropolitan 
highways  and  byways.  There  are  pools  and  patches  of  mud 
that  would  have  a  slimy  consistency  if  it  were  not  frequently 
stirred  by  the  feet  of  men  and  horses ;  and  there  are  frequent 
heaps  of  filth  that  have  waited  so  long  for  the  scavenger  that 
they  have  ceased  to  hope  for  his  coming,  and  have  settled  down 
into  the  calm  resignation  of  deep  despair.  The  pavement  is  un- 
even and  in  very  bad  condition  ;  it  appears  to  have  been  wholly 
neglected  since  it  was  first  laid  down,  and  will  probably  continue 
to  be  neglected  for  vears  to  come. 


122 


"whatever  is,  is  right." 


The  Moslem  rarely  repairs  anything,  as  he  believes  that  he  is 
interfering  with  the  work  of  God  if  he  attempts  to  stop  the  pro- 
gress of  decay.  He  builds  a  house,  a  mosque,  or  a  bridge — he 
erects  a  monument  to  the  memory  of  his  father  or  brother — he 
plants  a  tree  and  fences  a  field,  and  then  rests  content.  The 
edifice  may  crumble,  the  monument  may  fall,  or  the  tree  may 
wither ;  he  rolls  his  eyes  to  heaven  and  exclaims  :  "  Inshallah" — 
as  God  wills  it — his  duty  is  ended. 

Of  course  there  are  exceptions  to  the  rule.  Self-interest 
sometimes  overcomes  religious  scruples  in  the  East  as  well  as 
elsewhere,  and  the  Moslem  will  shrewdly  conclude  that  the  will 
of  God  requires  him  to  preserve  the  gifts  that  Heaven  has  be- 
stowed. 


CHAPTER    VII. 


CONSTANTINOPLE— THE   CITY  OF  DOGS. 

Human  Camels — Canine  Colors — The  Dogs  of  Istamboul — Their  Appearance  and 
Moral  Character — How  the  Turks  regard  theiri — "  Inshallah  " — Constantinopoli- 
tan  Dogsologies — An  Oriental  Dog-fight — Sagacious  Brutes — Cultivating  Canine 
Society — "  Standing  Treat  "  among  the  Curs — Four-footed  Campaigns — Dog- 
Districts — The  Hostile  Armies — A  Brilliant  Strateg'c  Move — Charge  of  the  Light 
(Dog)  Brigade — Advance  of  the  Chef  de  Garbage — The  "  Army  of  the  West  " 
in  Retreat — The  "Doubter's"  Mishap — Full  Details  of  a  Coat's  Detailing — An  Is- 
raelite in  whom  there  was  Guile — No  More  Sandwiches  for  Me,  Sir-r-r  ! 

OUR  baggage  is  on  the  backs  of  hamals  or  porters,  and  we 
follow  it  and  them  like  mourners  at  a  funeral. 

The  first  objects  to  attract  our  attention  are  some  ill-condi- 
tioned curs  of  low  degree,  full-blooded  curs,  with  not  a  particle 
of  respectability  about  them  except  in  very  rare  cases.  They  are 
nearly  all  of  the  nondescript  sort  which  the  ruralist  designates 
as  "  yaller  dog,"  without  reference  to  his  color.  Yellow  is  the 
prevailing  hue  ;  but  there  are  black,  brown,  white,  and  spotted 
dogs  among  them,  and  one  of  my  friends  avers  that  he  has  seen 
green,  red,  blue,  and  pink  dogs  over  in  Stamboul.  But  I  fear  he 
had  tarried  too  long  in  a  certain  cafe  there,  and  partaken  of  the 
cup  which  necessarily  inebriates  while  it  cheers. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  wolfishness  about  these  dogs  both  in 
habits  and  appearance.  They  have  no  home,  they  live  in  the 
streets,  and  hunt  for  their  living  wherever  there  is  a  chance  to 
find  anything.  You  see  them  lying  in  the  open  street,  on  the 
pavement  where  men  and  horses  are  passing,  or  on  the  narrow 
strip  of  sidewalk,  as  if  the  place  belonged  to  them.  Under  very 
favorable  circumstances  they  crouch  in  doorways,  but  in  so  doing 

(123) 


124 


POOR    DOG    TRAY. 


they  render  themselves  liable  to  be  kicked  soundly  whenever  an 
occupant  of  the  premises  happens  along.  When  they  lie  in  the 
street  men  and  horses  generally  step  over  or  around  them  ;  I  say 
generally,  as  neither  men  nor  horses  are  very  particular,  and  you 
not  unfrequently  hear  a  prolonged  yelp  or  howl  from  some  un- 
fortunate cur  whose  leg,  tail,  or  body,  has  received  the  impress  of 
a  human  or  equine  foot.  You  see  dogs  with  frightful  wounds 
received  from  horse  shoes,  and  others  with  huge  scars  where  such 
wounds  have  been  healed.  In  the  Grand  Rue  de  Pera  and  other 
streets  where  carriages  can  circulate,  the  sleeping  dogs  are  occa- 
sionally run  over  and  either  wounded  or  killed. 


A    STRLET    IN    COiNSTANTlNOPLE. 


I  was  one  day  an  unwilling  Vv^itness  of  one  of  these  occurrences. 
Within  a  yard  of  where  I  stood  a  carriage-wheel  passed  over  a 
dog,  lacerating  him  in  such  a  way  that  he  died  in  a  few  minutes. 
But  while  he  lived  his  howling  was  fearful  to  hear,  and  it  rang  in 
my  ears  long  after  the  poor  brute  had  ceased  to  breathe. 

The  Turks  in  general  care  little  about  the  sufferings  of  the 
dogs,  or  in  fact  of  any  living  thing.  Now  and  then,  one  of  them 
shows  a  little  kindness  to  the  animals,  allows  them  to  sleep  in 
his  doorway,  and  sometimes  feeds  them  with  any  refuse  food  he 
has  at  hand.  The  Christian  inhabitants  of  the  place  arc  more 
amiably  disposed  towards  the  brutes,  and  frequently  kill  them  in 
order  to  end  their  misery. 


THE    CITY  S    SCAVENGERS. 


125 


There  have  been  several  raids  upon  the  dogs  in  the  Pera 
quarter,  but  the  animals  are  so  numerous  and  the  opposition  of 
the  Turks  is  so  great,  that  the  numbers  are  not  much  dimin- 
ished. Though  the  Turks  consider  the  dog  an  unclean  beast 
and  have  no  love  for  him,  they  have  a  great  aversion  to  taking 
life  on  the  principle  I  have  before  mentioned  of  non-interference 
with  the  will  of  God. 

"  If  God  wished  the  dogs  to  die,"  said  a  Turk  one  day,  in  dis- 
cussing the  question,  "  he  would  sweep  them  off  by  a  pesti- 
lence.    Inshallah  !  they  shall  live." 

A  practical  reason  for  maintaining  these  dogs  in  Constantino- 
ple is  that  they  are  excellent  scavengers.  In  this  respect  they 
are  regarded  exactly  as  are  the  buzzards  that  abound  in  some  of 
our  southern  cities. 

Wherever  you  see  a  fresh  garbage  heap  in  Constantinople 
there  you  will  see  a  group  of  dogs.  They  are  engaged  in  making 
a  living,  and  they  turn  over  all  parts  of  the  heap  in  search  of 
something  edible.  Nothing  comes  amiss.  A  crust  of  bread,  a 
bit  of  meat,  a  bone,  fleshless  or  otherwise,  is  immediately  seized 
and  appropriated. 

I  used  to  watch  the  dogs  when  thus  foraging,  and  was  surprised 
to  observe  their  apparent  friendliness.  When  one  found  anything 
he  ate  it  without  being  disturbed  by  his  companions;  but  he 
never  lingered  long  over  it.  Sometimes  one  would  seize  hold  of 
a  large  bone  and  another  would  attach  himself  at  the  same  mo- 
ment to  the  opposite  end.  Then  began  a  discussion  of  growls, 
snorts,  and  bites,  and  very  often  the  whole  party  would  go  in  and 
there  would  be  a  general  scrimmage,  in  which  the  dogs  would  be 
in  a  struggling  heap,  doggedly  clinging  to  the  bone  of  contention. 

One  afternoon  I  happened  to  witness  a  fight  of  this  sort  in 
which  half  a  dozen  dogs  were  engaged.  There  was  one  little 
fellow  in  the  lot,  and  while  his  big  friends  were  quarreling  at  a 
lively  rate  he  slipped  in  beneath  the  belly  of  the  largest  and  came 
out  in  the  same  way,  bringing  the  bone  and  making  off  with  it.  So 
intent  were  they  upon  their  unpleasantness  that  they  did  not  ob- 
serve the  abstraction  until  little  dog  and  big  bone  were  out  of 
sight  around  the  corner.  They  looked  around  an  instant  with 
their  noses  in  the  air  and  then  struck  up  another  chorus  of  growls 


126 


CANINE    GRATITUDE. 


interrupted  with  bites  and  tussles.  Then  they  appeared  content 
and  returned  to  their  scientific  investigations  in  the  heap  of  gar- 
bage, pawing,  scratching,  and  turning  it  over  industriously  for 
everything  capable  of  mastication.  To  my  mind  a  whole  bundle 
of  morals  was  bound  up  in  the  incident,  but  I  forbear  to  thrust 
them  upon  my  readers. 

These  dogs  know  and  remember  their  friends  as  readily  as  do 
the  members  of  the  canine  race  in  other  parts  of  the  globe,  and 
numberless  are  the  anecdotes  of  their  sagacity  related  by  old  res- 
idents at  Constantinople.  A  stranger  walking  the  Grand  Rue 
de  Pera  will  frequently  be  accompanied  a  block  or  so  by  a  stray 

_  dog  who  will  wag  his 

^  ^  ■^ ^  \  ili,,,i.  ,f  tail  and  look  plead- 
ingly in  the  stranger's 
face  as  if  to  say 
•''^^^■li  "  Please  give  me  some- 
"^^  thing  to  eat."  These 
demonstrations  will  be 
liveliest  in  the  vicinity 
of  an  open-front  cook- 
shop,  such  as  are  so 
common  throughout 
the  "city  of  dogs," 
and  if  you  stop  and 
buy  something  for  the 
poor  brute  he  will  man- 
ifest his  gratitude  in  the  various  doggish  ways  with  which  we  are 
all  familiar.  He  will  remember  you  and  the  next  time  you  walk 
that  street  and  block,  he  will  be  on  hand  to  welcome  you. 

One  day  a  couple  of  dogs  thus  pleaded  for  me  to  stand  treat 
and  I  obliged  them  by  stopping  at  a  cook-shop  and  buying  a  few 
pennies  worth  of  the  pancaky  productions  of  which  the  lower 
class  of  Turks  are  so  fond.  That  evening  I  was  calling  on  some 
friends  at  the  Hotel  de  France  and  returned  rather  late  to  my 
quarters  in  the  Hotel  de  Byzance.  Two  or  three  hundred  yards 
from  my  destination  two  dogs  came  to  my  side  and  after  a  few 
demonstrations  of  welcome  traveled  along  with  a  dignified  air 
and  did  not  leave  me  until  I  entered  the  doorway  of  the  hotel. 


STRATEGY. 


FIGHTING    FOR    THEIR    COUNTRY.  12/ 

At  that  hour  the  cook-shops  had  long  been  closed  and  the 
manner  of  the  brutes  did  not  indicate  that  they  expected  to  be 
paid  for  taking  me  home.  Next  day  they  met  me  again  and  were 
prompt  to  recognize  me,  and  I  returned  their  recognition  by 
again  standing  treat  at  the  cook  shop.  That  night  they  were 
again  on  hand  to  escort  me,  and  when  a  third  dog  approached 
they  drove  him  away.  In  the  day  time  they  were  suppliants  but 
at  night  they  were  guardians,  and  I  was  told  that  if  any  man  had 
ventured  to  attack  me  there  was  little  doubt  that  they  would 
have  done  good  service  with  their  teeth. 

We  kept  up  our  acquaintance — the  dogs  and  I. — as  long  as  I 
remained  in  Constantinople.  I  have  always  entertained  great 
respect  for  the  dog,  and  this  experience  increased  rather  than  di- 
minished it. 

Have  any  of  us  ever  lived,  when  we  were  boys,  in  a  large  city, 
and  have  we  ever  been  "  licked"  by  the  boys  of  a  neighboring 
street  for  the  terrible  crime  of  venturing  out  of  our  own  territory.-* 
And  furthermore  have  we  ever  joined  in  "  licking"  some  other 
boy  who  had  the  audacity  to  venture  from  his  street  into  ours. 

Well,  what  boys  do  in  American  cities,  the  dogs  do  in  Turkey. 

They  divide  Constantinople  into  districts,  and  they  know  their 
own  districts  as  well  as  "  the  gal  knew  her  dad."  Each  group  of 
dogs  has  its  own  territory  and  they  are  also  on  good  terms  with 
each  other.  But  let  a  cur  from  the  next  dogship  venture  over 
the  boundary  he  is  in  trouble  at  once.  The  whole  crowd, 
Tray,  Blanche,  and  Sweetheart  and  all  the  other  big  and  little 
dogs  go  for  him,  and  give  it  to  him  tooth  and  nail  He  is  rolled 
over  in  the  mud  and  bitten  and  bruised,  and  if  he  gets  back  to  his 
own  ground  with  a  whole  skin  he  may  thank  his  dog-stars. 

I  have  frequently  seen  these  discussions  and  observed  how 
carefully  the  boundary  is  defined,  and  how  common  cause  is 
made  against  the  intruder.  He  is  driven  back  to  and  over  the 
frontier,  and  there  the  pursuit  is  supposed  to  end.  But  if  the 
pursuers  in  the  excess  of  their  zeal  venture  across  the  line  they 
are  attacked  by  the  combined  forces  of  the  district  they  have  in- 
vaded, and  a  grand  battle  is  occasionally  the  result.  The  vigor 
with  which  the  dogs  of  the  district  assert  their  common  rights, 
the  patriotic  zeal  of  even  the  most  insignificant  and  contemptible 


128  THE    SWILL-BOX    BRIGADE. 

curs  when  called  upon  to  defend  the  common  weal,  and  the  apti- 
tude which  the  dogs  display  for  the  discussion  of  diplomatic 
niceties  and  fine  distinctions,  call  for  the  respectful  considera- 
tion and  study  of  the  diplomats  and  scientists  of  the  Western 
world. 

One  day  I  was  sitting  with  a  friend  in  front  of  a  cafe  which 
was  situated  on  a  street  corner.  The  small  street  intersecting 
the  larger  one  happened  to  be  the  boundary  of  two  of  the  dog 
principalities,  and  we  observed  that  the  four-footed  inhabitants  of 
each  realm  frequently  came  down  to  the  street,  but  did  not  ven- 
ture into  it,  as  it  was  a  sort  of  neutral  zone,  which  neither  might 
occupy. 

Let  us  call  the  principalities  East  and  West  for  convenience 
in  telling  what  happened. 

Both  armies  had  been  gathered  at  the  boundary  and  sep- 
arated only  by  the  narrow  street.  They  snarled  and  growled 
and  made  rcconnoissances  in  force,  but  neither  ventured  across. 

The  army  of  the  East  was  the  more  numerous  and  contained 
larger  and  more  healthy  soldiers  than  that  of  the  West  ;  there  was 
mischief  in  their  eyes  and  mud  on  their  feet,  and  they  felt  that 
they  could  "  chaw  up"  the  dogs  of  the  West  if  they  had  a  chance. 
And  how  should  they  do  it  when  it  was  contrary  to  their  moral 
principles  to  invade  a  country  with  which  they  were  nominally  at 
peace  ? 

The  army  of  the  East  retired  from  the  frontier  and  disappeared 
round  the  next  corner  where  there  was  doubtless  a  camp  of  in- 
struction— a  sort  of  Chalons-sur-Marne.  The  army  of  the  West 
also  retired  and  moved  toward  its  own  interior  ;  it  stacked  arms  in 
the  vicinity  of  a  swill-box  in  front  of  a  restaurant,  and  waited  for 
somebody  to  overturn  the  box,  on  which  their  hopes  and  hunger 
were  centered.  Unconscious  of  danger,  they  did  not  preserve 
good  order,  and  nearly  half  their  forces  straggled  away  where 
a  baggy-breeched  and  dirty  Turk  had  just  deposited  a  basketful 
of  kitchen  garbage.  With  tail  in  air,  mouth  wide  open,  and 
thoughts  intent  upon  their  hurried  banquet,  for  one  fateful  mo- 
ment they  lost  sight  of  stratagems  and  only  dwelt  on  spoils 

This  was  the  military  situation  at  3.15  p.  m.  About  3.18  p.  m. 
a  cavalry  regiment  (one  dog)  debouched  from  the  street  leading 


THE  ATTACK THE  ROUT THE  PURSUIT. 


129 


to  the  fortified  camp  of  the  Army  of  the  East.  Halting  a  moment 
to  observe  the  situation, — it  had  only  one  eye  to  observe  with — 
and  its  tail  had  been  detailed  to  service  elsewhere — it  gave  the 
order  to  advance  and — obeyed  it. 

With  no  shout  of  defiance,  without  champ  of  bit  or  clank  of 
saber,  but  "  all  in  silence  deep,  unbroken,"  it  pressed  forward  at  the 
pas  de  charge  and  crossed  the  frontier.  Leaping  the  Rubicon — 
a  narrow  mud  puddle — it  was  on  the  sacred  soil  of  the  West. 

This  gallant  Light  Brigade — noble  six  hundred  ounces  of  dog- 
flesh — did  not  slacken  speed  for  an  instant,  but  pushed  onward 
with  head  and  stump  of  tail  up,  to  within  point  blank  range  of 
the  swill-box.  It  was  not  perceived  by  the  Army  of  the  West  until 
it  was  within  a  couple  of  yards  of  the  commissary  depot  ;  there 
a  shot  from   a  picket 

gave  the  alarm  and  the    fHiHH^^HHI?^^-^*-'^r:ij^- ^^-  "^ 
Army  of  the  West  fell 
into  line  at  once. 

The  swill-box  divi- 
sion made  a  bayonet 
charge  at  the  auda- 
cious invader,  who 
turned  and  with  de- 
pending caudal  stump 
legged  it  for  his  native 
land.  The  reser\^e  at 
the  garbage  heap  ad- 
vanced in  double  quick 
time  and  things  looked 
rather  lively  for  the 
invader. 

Swift  was  the  flight  and  swift  the  pursuit. 

The  pursuers  halted  not  at  the  frontier,  but  in  the  impetuosity 
of  youth  and  anger  at  the  insolence  of  the  enemy's  cavalry,  they 
pushed  straight  on  after  the  flying  foe. 

The  cavalry  sounded  its  trumpet  as  it  jumped  the  Rubicon, 
and  just  as  it  reached  the  corner  leading  to  the  fortified  camp, 
the  whole  army  of  the  East  came  to  its  support.  Wasn't  the 
army  of  the  West  up  a  tree  about  this  time  .■• 


THE   RECONNOITRE. 


130 


"father  of  all  dogs. 


The  battle  was  short,  sharp,  and  decisive.  The  army  of  the  West 
was  "licked"  out  of  its  boots,  and  with  shattered  battalions  and 
wide  gaps  in  its  ranks  it  came  limping  and  howling  home,  leaving 
the  ground  covered  with  a  debris  of  ears  and  tails 


They 


lade 


^^\i^. 


hak 


THE    RETREAT. 


at  the  frontier  whither  they  were 
pursued,  but  only 
stopped  long  enough 
to  intimate  that  they 
would  get  even  some- 
time. 

Whether  they  have 
ever  done  so  history 
does  not  record. 
The  despatches  from 
our  ambassador  at 
the  court  of  His  Maj- 
esty,  the  Sultan, 
made  no  mention  of 
the  matter,  and  a  sim- 
ilar remissness  has 
been  observed  in  the 
reports  of  Sir  Henry  Elliott  to  the  British  Government. 

The  dog  in  the  Orient  is  considered  an  unclean  and  disrepu- 
table beast,  and  one  of  the  worst  epithets  applicable  to  living 
things  is  the  terra  "  dog."  The  Moslem  was  once  accustomed  to 
speak  of  "christian  dogs"  whenever  he  had  occasion  to  allude  to 
people  of  the  Occident,  just  as  the  Chinese  are  to  this  day  in  the 
habit  of  designating  them  as  ''fajtkzuci,"  "foreign  devils."  Some- 
times a  delicate  allusion  is  made  to  the  maternal  descent  from 
the  canine  race,  where  the  speaker  wishes  to  lay  it  on  fine,  and 
if  he  wants  to  be  especially  choice  and  emphatic,  he  would  de- 
nounce an  offending  Occidental,  as  "  Father  of  all  dogs." 

Donkey  drivers  all  through  the  Orient  urge  their  beasts  for- 
ward by  shouting,  " Enipchy,  ya  kelb"  (go  on  you  dog,)  but  the 
donkeys  do  not  appear  to  mind  it.  I  was  repeatedly  impressed 
with  the  similarity  of  Arab  and  Russian  drivers,  as  the  epithet 
Kelb  which  the  former  apply  to  their  donkeys  and  camels,  has 
exactly  the  meaning  of  "sabaka"  which  the  Russian  yemshik 
yells  out  to  his  horse.. 


THE    "KNOWING    BRUTES       OF    DAMASCUS. 


131 


The  dogs  of  Constantinople  are  so  accustomed  to  the  sight  of 
people  in  European  dress,  that  they  do  not  pretend  to  attack 
them,  for  the  simple  reason  that  they  would  have  a  larger  con- 
tract on  hand  than  they  could  conveniently  fill.  But  the  case  is 
different  in  places  less  frequented  by  foreigners.  In  Damascus, 
when  our  party  made  the  tour  of  the  walls,  the  dogs  annoyed  us 
greatly  by  hanging  around  and  keeping  up  a  very  loud  and 
angry  barking.  They  did  not  bite  anybody,  though  they  came 
very  near,  and  certainly  manifested  a  strong  desire  for  dental 
practice. 

They  were  knowing  brutes,  those  Damascus  dogs  ;  one  of  our 
party  afterward  called  them  Damas-cussed  dogs  ;  but  we  re- 
proved him  and  threat- 
ened expulsion  if  he 
ever  did  so  again.  The 
joke  might  have  been  al- 
lowed in  Kit  Burns'  dog- 
pit,  but  was  quite  out  of 
place  in  a  respectable 
party  making  the  tour  of 
the  Holy  Land.  When 
they  barked  and  howled 
around  us,  we  made 
threatening  demonstra- 
tions with  our  canes  and 
umbrellas,  but  the  ani- 
mals didn't  scare  worth  "■ 
a  cent.  They  were  par- 
ticularly fascinated  with  the  "  Doubter,"  but  they  soon  knew  the 
range  of  his  umbrella,  and  how  to  keep  out  of  its  reach. 

But  when  our  guide  picked  up  a  stone  and  let  it  fly  they  fell 
back.  Whenever  they  came  too  near,  a  stone  would  send  them 
back  and  a  volley  would  put  their  ranks  in  disorder.  Even  the 
motion  to  pick  up  a  stone  would  start  them  ;  the  Arabs  around 
Damascus  can  hurl  these  missiles  with  great  violence  and  are 
good  shots,  and  the  dogs  know  it.  Several  times  our  guide  made 
splendid  shots,  taking  the  dogs  fairly  in  the  sides  with  stones  the 
size  of  a  respectable  fist,  or  a  more  respectable  piece  of  chalk, 
9 


A    DAMAS-CUSSED    DOG. 


132 


THE    "DOUBTER       AND    HIS    COAT-TAILS. 


STOWING  THE   SANDWICHES. 


and  sending  the  offenders  off  with  a  chorus  of  yelps  that  were  a 

warning  to  their  fellows. 

One  morning  when  we  were  start- 
ing out  for  a  long  forenoon's  walk, 
in  Constantinople,  the  "Doubter" 
was  sceptical  about  the  possibility  of 
getting  anything  to  eat  on  the  way, . 
and  so  took  the  precaution  to  provide 
himself  with  a  couple  of  ham  sand- 
wiches, which  he  stowed-  away  in  the 
rear  pocket  of  his  coat,  and  thereby 
hangs  a  tale 
In  one  place  we  passed  a  group  of  dogs  that  looked  up  inquir- 
ingly, but  showed  no  fight  or  other 
ugliness.  As  we  went  by  them  the 
largest  of  the  pack,  a  lank  beast  about 
the  size  of  a  full  grown  donkey, 
sniffed  the  morning  air  and  the  sand- 
wiches in  the  "Doubter's"  coat-tails. 
With  hair  bristling  on  his  back,  and 
with  tail  and  ears  erect  the  Ponto  of 
the  Orient  came  up  behind  us,  and  I 
could  see  what  he  wanted.  As  the 
"Doubter"  spoke  nothing  but  Eng- 
lish, I  passed  the  word  in  French  to  the  rest  of  the  party  to  keep 

his  attention  fixed  on  something, 
while  I  encouraged  the  dog.  They 
dropped  at  once  to  the  joke,  and  be- 
came very  busy  in  examining  the 
dome  of  a  mosque  that  loomed  up 
before  them. 

Ponto  or  Ishmael.or  whatever  his 
canine  name  was,  came  bravely  and 
hungrily  forward.  A  ham  sandwich 
was  evidently  a  luxury  the  brute  had 
not  enjoyed  for  many  a  day,  and  his 
appetite  was  now  fairly  aroused.  I  pointed  to  the  coat-tails  where 
were  enshrined  the  savory  sandwiches,  and  intimated  by  signs 


ADMIRING  THE    MOSQUE. 


A   SUDDEN   ATTACK. 


A    SUDDEN    ATTACK. 


133 


THE   PURSUIT. 


an-. 


that  it  was  all  right,  and  the  best  dog  might  win.     Ponto's  nose 
came  within  two  inches  of  the  prize, 
and  took  a  fresh  and  satisfying  sniff 
and  then — 

There  was  a  ripping  and  tearing  of 
broadcloth  ;  the  "Doubter"  fell  back- 
wards from  the  effect  of  the  shock, 
and  then — there  was  more  ripping. 
Ponto  was  hungry  and  the  Infidel 
Christian  had  brought  him  some- 
thing to  eat. 

As  the  novelists  say  "all  this 
passed  quicker  than  I  can  write  it." 
other  rip,  and  all  was  over. 

I  was  so  dumb-struck  with  aston- 
ishment that  I  couldn't  interfere  till 
Ponto  had  detailed  the  "Doubter's" 
coat.  As  he  fled  I  raised  a  shout 
and  a  terrible  outcry  that  made  him 
run  all  the  faster.  Away  he  went 
like  a  pirate-ship  in  a  fog,  and  in 
two  minutes  he  was  hull  down  among 
the  sand  hills. 

"  Stop  him !  stop  him  ! "  yelled  the 
"Doubter,"  but  the  brute  couldn't  understand 
dently  he  was  not  a  stop-watch  dog. 

"There's  a  coat  ruined,"  continued 
the  "Doubter,"  "I've  only  had  it 
four  years,  and  gave  twenty  dollars 
for  it.  What  shall  I  do  ?  what  shall  I 
do .? " 

"  Cut  off  the  other  tail  and  make  a 
jacket  of  it.  Come  to-morrow  with 
sandwiches  in  the  other  pocket  and 
the  dog  will  do  it  for  you." 

"  Hire  an  Arab  to  hunt  up  the  tail." 

"  Cut  off  the  dog's  tail  and  sew  it  on  instead.     The  coat  won't 
look  any  worse  than  it  did  before." 


A   HOPELESS   CHASE. 


English,  and  evi- 


RETROSPECTION. 


134 


REPAIRING    DAMAGES. 


"Tell  the  Consul  about  it,  and  have  him  demand  satisfaction 
of  the  government." 

These  and  other  irreverent  remarks  were  let  off  in  tlie  pauses 
of  our  laughter,  and  I  am  bound  to  say  that  the  "  Doubter"  didn't 
enjoy  any  part  of  the  joke.  He  was  unhappy  all  day,  and  more 
unhappy  when  he  visited  next  morning  the  clothing  shop  of  an 
Israelite,  in  whom  there  was  guile  enough  to  set  up  a  whole 
Tammany  Ring,  and  have  ten  per  cent,  to  spare.  While  he  tried 
on  a  coat,  and  was  dubious  about  the  fit,  the  polite  Jew  declared: 

"  Ah,  mein  Gott,  zat  coat,  he  fit  you  like  ze  skin  on  a  dog  ; 
like,  shoost  like,  ze  skin  on  one  big  dog  !  " 

And  the  "  Doubter"  again  waxed  wroth,  and  took  in  high  dudg- 
,eon  this  apparently  personal  indignity. 

When  he  paid  his  bill  at  the  hotel  he  was  again  angry,  for 
among  the  items  was  the  following : 

"  Extra — two  sandwiches,  two  francs." 

He  vowed  he  would  not  pay,  but  we  all  insisted  that  the  charge 
was  just,  and  he  finally  paid,  and  was  cross  for  a  week  afterward. 
But  he  never  again  took  ham  sandwiches  for  a  lunch  in  Constan- 
tinople. 


CHAPTER     VIII 


TURKISH    CURIOSITY    SHOPS— SIGHTS    AND     SCENES    IN    THE 

BAZAARS. 

Locomotion  in  Constantinople — Horses,  Donkeys,  Shank's  Mare  and  Sedan  Chairs 
Turkish  Street  Cars— Women  in  Public — The  Veiled  Queens  of  Seraglios — The 
Drugs  of  the  Orient — Henna  and  its  Uses— Ottar  of  Roses,  Musk  and  Berga- 
mot — Shawls  and  Silks  of  price — The  Treasures  of  Ormus  and  of  Ind — The 
Workers  in  Precious  Metals — Vases  of  Gold  and  Platters  of  Silver — An  Aureole 
of  Gems — Loot  for  Soldiers  and  Swag  for  Burglars — The  Weapons  of  Ancient 
Islam — Blades  of  Damascus  and  Swords  of  Mecca — A  Wonderful  Collection — 
Old  Clothes  and  New  Truck — A  Seedy  Moslem  Swindler — An  Exorbitant  "Back- 
sheesh"— What  happened  to  the  Judge — A  Dispenser  of  Justice  in  the  Lockup. 


DOUBTLESS  one  of  the  most  attractive  features  of  Constan- 
tinople in  the  eyes  of  a  stranger  is  a  visit  to  the  bazaars. 

To  reach  there  from  Pera,  where  all  the  hotels  are  situated,  it 
is  necessary  to  descend  the  steep  hill  to  Golata  and  cross  the 
Golden  Horn  to  Stamboul.  You  can  go  on  foot,  on  horseback, 
in  a  carriage,  or  in  a  sedan  chair  ;  on  foot  is  the  least  expensive 
and  is  the  method  employed  by  the  majority  of  visitors  as  it  fur- 
nishes an  opportunity  for  a  leisurely  survey  of  the  route  which  is 
always  interesting,  providing  the  rain  is  not  falling  and  the  sun 
is;  not  pouring  down  an  intense  heat. 

Saddle  horses  are  to  be  found  all  over  the  city,  and  you  can 
hire  them  by  the  day  or  hour  or  by  the  course  from  one  place  to 
another.  A  man  accompanies  the  horses,  and  no  matter  how 
fast  you  may  ride,  he  will  keep  close  to  the  animal's  heels  with- 
out apparent  fatigue. 

Carriages  are  a  comparatively  recent  feature  of  Constantino- 
ple ;  they  are  decidedly  expensive,  and  as  they  jolt  along  over 

(135) 


T-,6 


SEDAN-CHAIRS    AND    STREET    CARS. 


the  rough  pavements  you  are  shaken  up  in  a  way  to  make  Dys- 
pepsia turn  pale  in  the  face. 

The  sedan  chair  is  borne  by  two  men  and  is  not  an  uncomfort- 
able mode  of  locomotion  ;  all  things  considered  it  is  the  most 

agreeable  if  one  does 
not  wish  to  go  on 
foot,  and  has  an  aver- 
sion to  a  violent  shak- 
ing up.  The  sedan 
chair  waiting  at  the 
door  of  the  theatres 
near  the  conclusion 
of  the  performance 
presents  a  curious 
spectacle,  and  re- 
minds you  of  the 
stories  of  London  two 
hundred  years  ago 
when  chairs  and  link 
boys  were  the  mode. 
Omnibusses  and 
street  cars  are  in  use. 
The  latter  are  divided 
into  three  compartments,  first,  second,  and  women's.  The  first 
class  has  leather  cushions  on  the  seat,  and  are  generally  dirty  ; 
the  second  class  has  no  cushions  on  the  seats  and  are  generally 
dirtier.  In  the  women's  compartment  no  man  is  allowed  to  enter; 
the  women  sit  there  in  silence  and  seclusion  after  the  Turkish 
custom,  and  each  wears  the  veil. 

""  The  veil  of  the  Turkish  women  of  fashion  is  of  the  thinnest 
gauze ;  it  allows  the  full  outline  of  the  features  to  be  distinctly 
seen,  and  if  the  wearer  is  pretty  you  are  sure  to  know  it.  And 
between  you  and  me  many  who  are  not  altogether  pretty  are 
made  so  by  the  veil  which  softens  the  hard  outlines  and  tempers 
any  excess  of  color. 

The  street  car  dropped  us  at  the  point  indicated  by  our  guide, 
and  we  entered  the  bazaar  through  a  gateway  possessing  an  arch- 
itectural feature  worthy  of  notice.     The  first  place  we  visited  was 


A   SEDAN    CHAIR. 


A  PLACE  OF  A  THOUSAND  ODORS. 


137 


che  bazaar  of  drugs,  and  as  we  entered  it  a  thousand  peculiar 
odors  saluted  our  nostrils  ;  some  of  them  possessing  great  pun- 
gency and  power  of  penetration.  For  a  minute  or  so  the  odor 
was  almost  intoxicating  ;  it  was  much  like  that  which  we  experi- 
ence in  America  on  entering  a  drug  and  perfumery  establishment 
on  a  large  scale. 

The  street  or  passage-way  is  quite  narrow  and  on  either  side 


r(0:v^.^; 


A    TURKISH    BEAUTY. 


are  small  shops  with  open  fronts.  The  floor  of  the  shop  is  about 
three  feet  above  the  ground,  and  is  so  arranged  that  the  merchant 
squatted  within  can  use  the  front  part  of  the  floor  as  a  counter 
for  the  display  of  his  wares 

For  storage  purposes  there  were  shelves,  and  the  merchant 
could  reach  whatever  was  wanted  without  rising  from  his  place. 
On  the  projecting  platform  at  either  side  of  the  shop,  there  were 


138  COSTLY    PERFUMES. 

sacks  of  henna — used  for  coloring  a  great  many  things,  the  eye- 
brows and  finger-nails  of  women  included — and  there  were  other 
sacks  containing  dates  and  various  kinds  of  nuts.  Drugs  of  un- 
known names  and  quantities  were  exhibited,  and  in  many  respects 
each  shop  appeared  very  much  like  its  neighbor. 

Immediately  on  entering  we  find  ourselves  in  the  place  set 
apart  for  perfumery,  and  if  we  wish  to  purchase  ottar  of  rose, 
musk,  essence  of  bergamot,  oil  of  sandal  wood,  or  any  of  that 
kind  of  goods,  now  is  our  chance.  The  merchants  here  seem  to 
think  that  the  chief  end  of  foreign  man  and  especially  woman  is 
to  buy  ottar  of  rose,  and  you  are  offered  the  article  in  all  sorts  of 
flasks  and  bottles  They  have  a  curious  looking  bottle,  shaped 
like  one's  finger  but  longer  in  proportion  to  its  width,  which  holds 
only  a  few  drops  of  the  precious  liquid. 

Each  man  assures  you  that  his  is  the  only  genuine  article  of 
the  kind  in  the  city,  and  that  you  will  be  cheated  if  you  go  else- 
where. You  are  allowed  to  smell  of  the  merchandise,  and  by 
way  of  convincing  you  of  the  genuineness  of  what  they  offer, 
they  show  you  a  small  bottle  of  the  counterfeit  with  the  assur- 
ance that  they  never  sell  it  and  only  keep  it  to  show. 

There  is  more  humbug  and  nonsense  in  the  purchase  and  sale 
of  ottar  of  rose  than  in  anything  else  that  is  dealt  in,  in  the  Ori- 
ent. Every  guide  can  take  you  to  the  only  merchant  in  the  city 
who  sells  the  genuine  article,  and  no  two  guides  take  you  to  the 
same  merchant. 

You  can  buy  the  stuff  anywhere  from  one  to  twenty  dollars 
an  ounce  ;  the  price  you  pay  is  only  limited  by  your  willingness 
to  pay  it,  and  the  amount  of  money  that  your  guide  and  the  mer- 
chants {who  are  invariably  "in  cahoots")  think  they  can  squeeze 
out  of  you.  You  can  just  as  well  buy  for  five  dollars  an  ounce 
as  for  twenty  ;  the  genuine  article,  unadulterated  in  any  way,  is 
worth  fifty  dollars  an  ounce  at  the  place  of  manufacture,  and  as 
the  Orient  demands  large  profits,  you  should  expect  to  pay  a 
hundred  dollars  for  it  in  Constantinople. 

You  can  set  it  down  as  a  certainty  that  no  stranger  can  pos- 
sibly buy  the  genuine  ottar  ot  rose  in  the  bazaars  of  Constantino- 
ple or  Cairo. 

Near  these  perfume  bazaars  are  the  shops  where  you  can  buy 
all  sorts  of  Oriental  luxuries  in  the  shape  of   shawls  and  silks.. 


WONDERS    OF    THE    "GRAND    BAZAAR.  1 39 

sandal  and  rosewood,  Persian  mirrors  framed  in  fine  paintings, 
articles  of  ivory,  or  ebony,  or  pearl,  little  odds  and  ends  of  fila- 
gree work  ;  in  fact,  an  endless  variety  of  things  of  more  or  less 
value. 

The  merchants  are  not  so  ready  to  show  their  goods  as  those 
we  have  just  passed,  for  the  reason  that  the  articles  may  be  dam- 
aged by  much  handling,  and  customers  are  not  very  easy  to  ob- 
tain. If  you  show  a  disposition  to  trade,  they  will  accommodate 
you;  but  they  do  not  rush  to  strip  their  shelves  at  your  approach. 
We  did  not  want  to  buy  drugs,  and  so  we  went  rather  hastily 
through  this  bazaar  to  visit  the  "  Grand  Bazaar,"  as  it  is  generally 
known  among  foreigners  as  well  as  natives.  Do  not  imagine 
that  it  is  a  single  house  ;  it  is  so  in  one  sense,  and  in  another  is 
far  from  it.  It  is  a  sort  of  city  within  a  city  ;  it  has  streets, 
lanes,  alleys,  and  squares,  which  are  all  roofed  over,  so  that  you 
might  walk  upon  the  housetops  from  one  side  of  the  bazaar  to 
the  other.  Light  is  admitted  through  holes  in  the  street  roofs, 
some  of   them  open  and  others  covered  with  glass. 

There  is  not  light  enough  to  go  around  and  give  a  good  supply 
to  everybody,  and  sometimes  you  have  to  strain  your  eyes  to  see 
distinctly,  and  then  you  don't.  A  good  many  of  the  shop-keepers 
in  America  are  up  to  the  same  dodge  ;  if  you  don't  believe  it, 
just  enter  a  ready-made  clothing  store  in  New  York  or  Boston, 
and  observe  in  what  part  of  the  establishment  they  endeavor  to 
fit  you. 

Further  on  you  find  the  shops  where  the  silks  of  Broussa  are 
sold,  an  article  for  which  Constantinople  has  long  been  famous. 
There  are  two  kinds  of  Broussa  goods,  one  entirely  of  silk  and 
the  other  half  silk  and  half  linen ;  the  latter  is  much  the  cheaper 
of  the  two,  and  greatly  in  demand  for  dresses  after  the  European 
model.  The  merchants  endeavor  to  tempt  the  masculine  visitor 
with  dressing-gown  and  wrappers  of  Broussa  silks,  and  then 
with  slippers  and  other  articles  which  would  make  a  sensation  at 
home.  There  is  a  great  supply  of  ready-made  clothing  of  the 
Turkish  pattern,  especially  for  children  ;  and  you  could  rig  out  a 
small  boy  there  in  a  very  short  time  with  garments  that  fit  him 
exactly,  from  slippers  up  to  head  dress. 

And  so  you  go  on.     You  can  wander  for  hours  in  the  bazaars, 
days  will  not  exhaust  their  treasures,  and  I  think  I  should  be 


140  AN    AUREOLE    OF    GEMS. 

content  to  spend  my  odd  moments  there  for  at  least  half  a  year. 
The  whole  wealth  of  Ormus  and  of  Ind  seems  to  be  stored  there  ; 
and  the  eyes  are  frequently  dazzled  by  some  object  of  great 
value,  whose  existence  is  almost  an  enigma,  and  its  uses  still 
more  so.  You  pass  from  the  centre  of  one  trade  to  that  of 
another ;  now  you  are  among  the  rows  of  shops  where  are  sold 
the  curiously-shaped  shoes  of  the  Orient.  Thousands  and  thou- 
sands of  shoes  are  exposed  there,  and  you  think  if  all  Turkey 
should  become  by  some  miracle  barefoot  to-morrow  morning,  it 
could  be  newly  shod  before  nightfall  from  this  bazaar  alone. 

You  enter  the  bazaar  of  the  workers  in  gold  and  silver,  and 
there  you  see  enough  of  the  precious  metal  to  pay  the  national 
debt  of  any  reasonably  economical  country,  or  at  all  events,  to 
go  far  in  that  direction.  You  enter  the  bazaar  of  precious  stones 
and  see  the  light  flashing  and  sparkling  from  thousands  of  dia- 
monds of  "  purest  ray  serene,"  and  should  you  show  a  desire  to 
purchase,  they  will  bring  forth  from  dusty  and  iron-bound  cof- 
fers tens  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  other  diamonds,  larger 
and  more  brilliant  than  those  which  hang  or  lie  in  the  show- 
cases. Collars,  ear-drops,  rings,  and  pins  of  diamonds  and  other 
precious  stones  are  on  exhibition,  and  many  of  them,  in  spite  of 
their  oriental  mounting  in  semi-barbaric  taste,  are  of  great 
beauty. 

The  wealth  stored  here  is  something  incredible.  The  loot  of 
the  place  would  make  many  and  many  a  fortune,  and  enable  the 
robbers  to  live  comfortably  and  honestly  for  the  rest  of  their 
days. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  places  is  the  Arms  Bazaar.  It  is 
not  exactly  what  its  name  indicates,  as  it  contains  a  great  many 
things  besides  weapons  of  war  or  the  chase.  In  the  other  ba- 
zaars you  find  an  attempt  now  and  then  to  conform  to  Occidental 
taste,  but  here  everything  is  Oriental.  You  can  find  here  every 
sort  of  weapon  which  the  Orient  has  known  in  the  past  ten  or 
twenty  centuries.  There  are  swords  of  Damascus,  of  a  fineness 
unknown  to  the  best  steel  of  the  present  day,  and  which  may 
have  flashed  in  the  hands  of  Saladin  or  Haroun-al-Raschid. 
There  are  knives  and  lances  that  are  said  to  have  pierced  through 
coats  of  mail,  and  whose  handles  are  crusted  and  covered  with 


THE    DEALERS    IN    HUMAN    FLESH. 


141 


pearls  and  precious  stones.  There  are  spears,  hatchets,  lances, 
sabres,  curious  old  match-locks,  with  barrels  of  immense  length — 
all  the  weapons  of  the  Islam  of  the  past  and  going  back  to  the 
time  when  Mohammed,  at  Mecca,  believed  himself  commissioned 
from  heaven  to  reform  the  world. 

Saddles  and  housings,  sparkling  with  precious  stones,  are 
placed  where  the  light  falling  from  the  vaulted  roof  will  show 
them  to  the  best  advantage  ;  and  as  you  look  around  you  see 
thousands  of  objects  covered  with  jewels  and  with  barbaric  pearl 
and  gold.  There  are  garments  lined  with  costly  furs,  or  embroi- 
dered in  the  most  elaborate  manner,  and  there  are  articles  of  fur- 
niture of  fabulous  value. 

So  great  is  the  wealth  contained  in  the  Arms  Bazaar  that  no 
fire  is  allowed  there  under  any  circumstances.  Smoking  is  pro- 
hibited ;  the  place  where  a  Turk  forbids  himself  to  smoke  must 
be  sacred  in  the  highest  degree. 

There  are  bazaars  where  they  sell  pipes  of  all  kinds,  and  where 
you  buy  all  kinds  of  tin-ware.  There  are  book  bazaars,  seed 
.bazaars,  glass  bazaars,  and  so  on  through  a  long  list.  And  there 
is  a  second-hand  bazaar,  where  you  can  buy  anything  from 
a  set  of  false  teeth  to  a  suit  of  clothes.  It  is  a  wonderful 
mass  of  stuff,  not  altogether  inviting ;  as  you  walk  around,  you 
have  suspicions  of  plague,  cholera,  and  other  diseases  of  the 
Orient,  and  are  not  altogether  sorry  to  get  away.  To  most  vis- 
itors to  this  place,  the  request  "  please  not  handle  "  would  be 
quite  superfluous,  as  they  have  no  wish  to  form  a  v«rv  intimate 
acquaintance  with  the  articles  exposed  for  sale.  Ikit  the  Turk 
never  puts  up  a  notice  of  this  sort,  and  seems  quite  indifferent 
on  the  subject. 

We  inquired  for  the  slave  bazaar,  and  were  told  it  no  longer 
existed. 

A  few  years  ago  there  was  such  a  bazaar  near  the  mosque  of 
Mohammed  II,  where  negro  children  were  sold,  and  occasionally 
one  could  find  an  adult,  man  or  woman,  to  be  disposed  of.  The 
bazaar  for  white  slaves  is  also  gone,  but  the  commerce  is  still 
carried  on  clandestinely.  The  business  is  conducted  by  Circas- 
sians established  in  the  Pera  quarter  ;  they  claim  that  the  girls 
sold  by  them,  come  voluntarily  to  Constantinople,  and  the  prices 
they  demand  is  simply  to  cover  the  expense  of  importation. 


142  A    QUEER    CALENDAR. 

It  was  the  month  of  Ramadan,  or  Ramazan,  when  I  arrived  at 
Constantinople.  There  may  be  some  ignorant  wretch  who 
doesn't  know  what  Ramadan  is. 

Well,  the  Mohammedan  year  is  divided  into  twelve  months, 
composed  alternately  of  twenty-nine  and  thirty  days,  or  three 
hundred  and  fifty-four  days  in  all.  Consequently  the  year  begins 
sometimes  in  the  spring,  sometimes  in  the  summer,  and  so  on, 
with  a  constant  variation.  This  may  seem  absurd  to  our  notions, 
but  on  second  thought  we  see  that  it  gives  every  month  a  fair 
show,  and  is  really  a  very  just  system. 

Suppose  we  had  the  same  kind  of  year,  we  could  have  Jan- 
uary begin,  once  in  a  while,  in  August,  and  March  could  have  a 
chance  to  set  up  for  September.  May  could  not  put  on  airs  over 
November,  because  they  would  change  places  from  time  to  time, 
and  December  could  be  in  haying  time,  just  as  often  as  it  is  the 
period  for  skating.  Think  of  planting  potatoes  in  November  and 
cutting  ice  in  August,  of  eating  your  Christmas  dinner  and  going 
a  Maying  in  October  !     Mohammed  had  a  level  head  after  all. 

Ramadan  is  the  most  sacred  month  in  the  year,  and  every. 
Moslem  is  directed  to  fast  every  day  during  that  month.  From 
sunrise  to  sunset  he  must  abstain  from  eating,  drinking,  smoking, 
and  smelling  perfumes,  and  from  all  indulgence  of  a  worldly 
character 

The  Prophet  neglected  to  prohibit  his  followers  from  taking 
presents  or  swindling  their  customers  during  this  month  ;  at  all 
events,  I  found  them  entertaining  the  most  extraordinary  notions 
of  the  value  of  their  services,  and  asking  about  four  times  the 
real  worth  of  what  they  had  to  sell  and  what  I  wanted  to  buy. 

The  first  afternoon  we  were  in  Constantinople  we  went  to  the 
Tower  of  Golata,  which  overlooks  the  city  ;  there  were  six  of  us, 
and  we  went  without  a  guide.  We  climbed  the  steps  until  we 
reached  the  platform,  where  the  police  authorities  keep  a  detach- 
ment constantly  on  the  lookout  for  fires,  and  I  may  here  remark, 
by  the  way,  that  their  vigilance  is  well  rewarded,  as  they  have 
more  fires,  and  very  destructive  ones  they  are,  in  Constantinople 
than  in  any  other  city  of  its  size  on  the  face  of  the  globe. 

When  we  reached  this  platform  a  seedy  Turk  approached  us 
and  asked  what  we  wanted. 


THE  JUDGE  UNDER  LOCK  AND  KEY. 


143 


"  Can  we  go  to  the  top  ? "  I  asked  in  French,  as  he  was  more 
likely  to  understand  that  language  than  any  other  with  which  I 
was  familiar. 

The  seedy  Moslem  extended  his  hand  and  uttered,  "  back- 
sheesh !  "  in  a  very  imperative  tone. 

I  o-ave  him  a  franc,  and  he  then  counted  six  on  his  fingers, 
and  intimated  that  he  wanted  six  francs  for  the  party.  I  paid 
no  more  attention  to  him, 
and  continued  up  the  stairs 

to  the  top,  calling  on  the  ^C^^'lt  *f^r  1^^''^.A.  S  M 
rest  to  follow.  We  re- 
mained there  an  hour  or 
more  studying  the  beauti- 
ful, or  as  the  French  would 
say,  bizarre  picture  which 
included  the  whole  of  Con- 
stantinople, the  Golden 
Horn,  Scutari,  with  much 
of  the  Asiatic  side  and  por- 
tions of  the  Bosphorus  and 
Sea  of  Marmora.  We 
watched  the  sun  go  down, 
and  when  his  rays  had 
ceased  to  gild  the  domes 
and  minarets  of  Stamboul  we  were  ready  to  descend. 

The  Judge  had  gone  down  before  the  sun,  as  he  was  not  much 
on  sight-seeing,  and  had  spied  a  Greek  beer-shop  near  the  foot 
of  the  tower,  and  intimated  that  he  would  sit  down  in  front  of  it 
and  wait  for  us.  When  the  rest  of  us  went  down  our  seedy 
Turk  was  on  the  lookout,  and  demanded  more  francs  ;  he  wanted 
five  and  I  gave  him  one,  and  intimated  that  I  would  break  his 
Osmanli  skull  if  he  didn't  shut  up.  We  were  more  numerous 
than  he,  and  he  didn't  trouble  us  farther,  except  by  howling 
"backsheesh"  as  long  as  we  were  within  hearing. 

And  what  do  you  suppose  the  Judge  told  us  when  we  joined 
him } 

That  scoundrelly  Oriental  had  locked  the  door  on  the  Judge 
and  refused  to  let  him  descend  until  he  paid  the  five  francs,  which 


A^f   IMPORTUNATE   MOSLEM. 


144 


A    MOSLEM    SWINDLE. 


he  afterward  demanded  of  us,  and  the  good-natured  ex-dispenser 
of  justice  actually  paid  the  fellow  three  francs,  and  then  grew 
wrathy  and  threatened  to  break  the  door  if  it  was  not  opened. 

The  Turk  saw  he 
meant  business,  and 
then  unlocked  the 
door,  not  without  a 
final  demand,  which 
he  repeated  while  our 
friend  descended. 

We  learned  at  the 
hotel  that  half  a  franc 
would  have  been  a 
sufficient  "back- 
sheesh "  for  the  whole 
party.  Had  we  paid 
that  and  no  more 
when  we  entered,  the 
fellow  would  have  seen  that  we  knew  the  price,  and  would  have 
made  no  further  demand.  But  my  gift  of  a  franc — double  the 
proper  fee — coupled  with  my  question  showed  him  that  we  were 
a  lot  of  modest  idiots  who  might  be  swindled.  It  was  our  first 
experience  with  the  Moslem,  and  you  can  wager  that  we  learned 
a  good  lesson  from  it. 

Now,  this  happened  in  the  month  of  Ramadan,  and  that  Turk 
was  keeping  the  fast  with  religious  exactness.  Yet  we  shouldn't 
have  been  swindled  any  more  by  a  Christian  hackman  m  New 
York  or  Chicago,  unless  we  had  given  the  hackman  an  equal 
chance. 


EXTORTING  "  BACKSHEESH. 


CHAPTER     IX. 


FASTING  AND  FEASTING— THE    SULTAN  AND  HIS  COURT. 

The  Great  Moslem  Fast— Nights  of  Feasting  and  Days  of  Fasting— The  Injunction 
of  Mahomet— The  Ravenous  Mussulman — An  Hotel  Swindle — A  Stranger  and 
They  Took  Him  In— "  Too  Thin,  too  Thin"— Greek  Wine— Going  Out  in  a  Blaze 
of  Glory— Thunder,  Smoke,  and  Flame— The  Approach  of  the  Sultan— How  He 
Looked— A  Peep  at  the  Ladies  of  the  Harem — The  Veiled  Queens— The  Sultan's 
Mother— The  Empress  Eugenie  at  the  Seraglio— Insult  Offered  to  Eugenie— A 
Queen   in  Tears — A  Question  of  Court  Etiquette — Murdering  Christians. 

WHEN  the  month  of  Ramadan  falls  in  winter,  and  the  days 
are  short  and  cool,  the  fast  is  not  very  severe,  especially  for  the 
wealthier  class  who  are  not  obliged  to  work. 

But  in  summer,  with  heat  and  long  days,  the  fast  becomes  a 
serious  matter  for  all  parties,  especially  for  the  poorer  class  who 
must  attend  to  their  daily  avocations.  The  rich  Moslems  lie 
around  their  houses  in  a  semi-comatose  condition  ;  some  of  them 
sit  up  all  night  eating,  drinking,  and  smoking,  and  devote  the  day 
to  digestion  and  sleep ;  thus  they  rob  the  fast  of  its  terrors,  and 
I  am  told  that  many  of  them  do  not  hesitate  to  take  an  occa- 
sional bite  during  the  day,  but  they  take  it  very  privately  and  in 
the  strictest  confidence. 

The  fast  comes  heaviest  on  the  poorer  classes,  and  especially  the 
abstinence  from  drinking.  Think  of  being  at  work  out  of  doors 
in  a  July  day  fourteen  hours  or  so,  and  not  a  drop  of  water  or 
any  other  liquid  passing  your  lips  !  Men  frequently  faint  under 
such  circumstances,  and  sometimes  their  health  is  seriously  im- 
paired. 

(145) 


140 


FASTING    AND    FEASTING, 


Should  a  Turk  faint  from  fasting  and  you  endeavored  to  revive 
him  by  pouring  coffee  or  water  down  his  throat,  it  is  an  even 
chance  that  he  would  berate  you  soundly  when  he  came  to  him- 
self, for  attempting  to  make  him  abandon  the  faith  of  his  child- 
hood, and  embrace  that  of  the  Christian  dog. 

The  Prophet  enjoined  his  followers  not  to  crowd  this  fasting 
business  too  much  ;  soldiers  in  time  of  war  are  not  required  to 
keep  the  fast,  nor  persons  who  are  sick  or  on  a  journey.  It  is 
even  stated  in  the  Koran  that  nobody  should  keep  the  fast  unless 
perfectly  healthy  and  able  to  do  so,  and  that  he  should  not  neg- 
lect necessary  labor  to  keep  it.     But  if  he  does  not  fast  during 


END  OF  THE  FAST  AND   BEGINNING  OF  THE   FEAST. 

Ramadan,  he  must  do  so  an  equal  number  of  days  in  the  rest  of 
the  year. 

In  Constantinople  a  gun  is  fired  at  sunrise  and  another  at 
sunset,  and  between  these  gun-fires  the  fast  is  in  full  force.  As 
evening  approaches  every  body  gets  ready  for  business,  and  is 
determined  that  no  time  shall  be  lost.  Fires  are  lighted,  food  is 
cooked  and  placed  on  the  table,  and  coffee  is  poured  out.  As 
the  sun  touches  the  horizon  the  dinner  party  sits  (or  squats)  at 
the  table,  and  when  the  gun  booms  out  there  is  from  one  side  of 
the  Ottoman  capital  to  the  other  a  simultaneous  extension  of 
right  hands  to  clutch  something  edible,  and  convey  it  to  the 


"TAKING    IN       STRANGERS  I47 

gaping  Moslem  mouths,  i  You  can  almost  hear  the  rush  of  wind 
caused  by  that  synchronous  movement,  and  if  the  force  employed 
could  be  utilized  by  wheels  and  belts,  it  would  be  found  suffi- 
cient for  the  propulsion  of  a  cotton  factory  of  the  largest  calibre. 

Things  went  on  this  way  day  after  day  during  Ramadan,  and 
wherever  we  went  among  the  Turks,  near  the  sunset  hour,  we 
witnessed  the  same  scenes. 

The  mosques  were  brilliantly  illuminated  both  externally  and 
internally  ;  the  rows  of  lamps  hung  round  the  upper  galleries  of 
the  minarets  presented  a  curious  appearance,  as  the  minaret 
would  generally  be  quite  invisible  in  the  darkness,  so  that  the 
rows  of  light  would  appear  to  be  suspended  high  \\p  in  the  air. 
The  people  assembled  for  daily  prayers,  instead  of  weekly  ones, 
and  there  was  a  general  appearance  of  piety  all  around,  coupled 
with  an  intense  desire  to  make  the  most  out  of  the  "stranger 
within  the  gates  " 

Even  the  Christian  residents  seemed  to  have  caught  the  infec- 
tion— the  proprietor  of  the  Hotel  d'Angleterre  "  raised  "  on  us 
about  four  hours  after  we  had  settled  into  our  quarters,  and  we 
had  a  row  by  way  of  diversion. 

When  we  went  there  from  the  steamer  we  arranged  to  have 
everything,  rooms,  attendance,  lights,  and  wine  at  dinner,  for 
twenty  francs  per  diem  ;  when  we  were  gathered  at  the  table  we 
were  told  that  wine  would  be  extra — the  manager  was  sorry,  but 
they  had  made  a  mistake  in  telling  us  wine  was  included.  He 
would  not  yield,  and  next  morning  we  packed  our  baggage  and 
went  to  the  rival  house. 

When  he  found  that  we  were  leaving,  he  came  down.  We 
might  have  wine  free,  he  would  give  us  the  best  rooms  in  the 
house,  he  would  eat  dirt,  any  dirt  we  might  select,  and  in  any 
quantity,  if  we  would  only  stay. 

But  "it  was  no  go,"  or  rather  it  was  a  go  on  our  part,  and  we 
patronized  the  Hotel  de  Byzance,  where,  for  sixteen  francs,  we 
had  everything  as  good  as  at  the  other  house,  and  wine  included. 
The  wine  proved  to  be  ornamental  rather  than  useful ;  it  was 
a  Greek  article,  with  the  £-ou^  of  nitric  acid  and  oak  bark,  and 
brave  must  be  the  man  who  would  drink  it. 

Should  I  visit  that  hotel  a  decade  hence,  I  expect  to  find  the 
same  decanter  of  wine,  that  stood  by  my  plate  during  my  stay. 
10 


148 


A    VINOUS    FAREWELL. 


The  day  I  left  I  grasped  the  decanter  affectionately  and  gave 
it  a  farewell  kiss. 

"  Good  bye,  my  friend,  good  bye,"  I  gently  murmured,  "  we 
shall  meet  again  some  time,  let  us  fervently  hope.  I  am  a  frail 
mortal  and  may  not  last  many  years,  but  you  have  enduring 
qualities  that   should  preserve   you  a  century  or  two.     Don't 

/i!i|Mir''1ttf|1T'Mlf  '"'''^^    °"  me' when  I  am 

'"^^'^    III'      II    J*B  I  /      II     iNipillifi  faraway;  if  anything,  you 

are  too  sour  already." 

The  decanter  was  too 
full  for  utterance.  A  tear 
stood  in  its  eye,  though  it 
may  have  been  a  drop  re- 
maining from  the  effort  of 
the  waiter  to  tone  the  wine 
down  with  water,  so  that 
the  stuff  would  be  drinka- 
ble. 

Ramadan    closed    in    a 
blaze  of  glory.     The  ships 
of   the   Turkish    squadron 
were  gorgeously  dressed  in 
flags,  and  many  English  and 
^^^i  French  residents  hung  out 
"GooD-HYK,  MY  FRIEND,  GOOD-BYE."         t^cir  natloual  staudards. 
From  the  ships  and  the  forts  all  round  came  the  booming  of  artil- 
lery— not  in  occasional  spattering  shots,  but  in  a  salvo  that  seemed 
to  shake  the  city,  and  check  the  flow  of  the  waters  through  the 
Posphorus. 

The  fast  was  over  and  the  Moslem  was  happy.  Next  day  was 
the  feast  of  Bairam,  and  the  Sultan  was  to  pray  in  the  mosque  of 
Samt  Sophia.  Of  course  we  went  to  see  him  arrive  at  the 
mosque,  and  we  had  to  rise  disagreeably  early  in  order  to  be 
promptly  on  the  ground. 

From  the  Stamboul  end  of  the  bridge  over  the  Golden  Horn 
there  was  a  double  hedge  of  infantry  and  cavalry  all  the  way  to 
the  mosque.  We  took  positions  near  the  entrance  to  the  Seraglio 
Park,  where  we  could  have  a  front  view  of  the  carriages  as  they 


THE    SULTAN  S    PAGEANT. 


149 


approached,  and  then  a  side  view  as  they  turned  to  enter  the 
gate.  The  aphorism  that  great  minds  think  ahke  was  well  ver- 
ified on  that  occasion,  as  we  found  some  two  or  three  thousand 
people  holding  similar  views  to  ours,  and  a  front  place  seemed 
hopeless. 


A  TURKISH   "CAVASS." 


The  police  were  very  civil,  and  the  "  cavass,"  or  police  officer 
on  duty  in  front  of  our  party,  kept  the  population  from  crowding 
us  in  conveniently  close.  The  "  cavass"  was  arrayed  in  gorgeous 
style,  and  a  franc  slipped  into  his  hand  proved  a  good  investment ; 
where  he  had  before  used  words  he  now  used  a  stick,  and  soon 


IJO  GAZING  AT  THE  GRAND  TURK. 

convinced  the  multitude  that  it  had  no  rights  which  he  or  we  were 
bound  to  respect.  We  had  front  places,  and  the  fellow  even 
brought  a  couple  of  bricks  on  which  the  lady  of  our  party  could 
stand  and  thus  preserve  her  feet  from  the  dampness  of  the 
earth. 

We  were  close  to  the  gate  and  had  a  good  position.  On 
the  opposite  side  of  the  gate  there  was  a  crowd  of  women, 
principally  Turkish  ;  we  intimated  that  we  would  like  to  stand 
there,  but  the  force  of  politeness  and  "backsheesh"  could  no  farther 
go.  Our  laHy  might  join  the  feminine  group,  but  as  for  the  rest 
of  us  it  was  out  of  the  question.  No  man  was  allowed  to  intrude 
there  ;  to  Christian  and  Moslem,  Jew  and  Pagan,  the  place  was 
forbidden,  and  two  policemen  were  there  to  enforce  obedience. 

By  and  by  there  was  a  commotion,  and  a  squadron  of  cavalry 
came  trotting  up  the  street  and  into  the  gate.  Close  behind  them 
came  carriages  containing  officers  of  the  Sultan's  cabinet,  and 
behind  them  in  the  most  gorgeous  carriage  of  all,  was  the  Sultan 
Abdul-Aziz,  the  head  of  the  Ottoman  Empire. 

He  rode  alone,  etiquette  forbidding  that  he  should  be  accom- 
panied by  any  one,  even  by  a  minister  of  State.  He  is  a  stout, 
in  fact  more  than  stout,  individual,  with  a  heavy  face,  rather  devoid 
of  expression.  I  saw  him  seven  years  before  in  Paris  ;  then  his 
cropped  and  full  beard  was  black ;  but  as  I  looked  at  it,  on  that 
morning  of  Bairam  I  found  that  it  was  well  sprinkled  with  grey. 
Unless  the  Sultan  renews  his  youth  at  some  Ponce  de  Leon  fount 
of  hair  dye  he  will  be  a  respectable  old  grey-beard  before  many 
years,  provided  he  is  not  gathered  too  soon  to  his  Osmanli 
Fathers.  He  was  born  on  the  9th  of  February,  1830,  and  so  you 
can  easily  calculate  his  age — just  as  easily  as  he  can  do  it. 

He  sits  erect  and  with  an  air  of  dignity  ;  evidently  he  knows 
that  people  are  looking  at  him,  and  he  ought  to  be  on  his  good 
behavior.  He  is  in  a  gaudy  uniform,  which  my  hasty  glance 
does  not  allow  me  to  include  in  detail,  and  his  fez  is  bright,  and 
has  evidently  been  sent  out  that  morning  and  freshly  ironed. 
He  is  evidently  proud  of  his  fez  and  gives  his  whole  mind  to  it. 

The  Sultan  is  a  devout  Moslem,  and  goes  to  church,  or  mosque, 
with  exemplary  regularity.  Every  Friday  he  leaves  his  palace 
about  eleven  o'clock  and  goes  to  one  of  the  mosques,  never  to 


GLIMPSES    OF    THE    HAREM.  I5I 

the  same  one  twice  in  succession,  and  very  often  he  changes 
his  mind  an  hour  or  so  before  he  sets  oiit.  He  generally  goes 
on  horseback,  and  sometimes  in  a  caique,  and  rarely  in  a  carriage. 
He  never  goes  back  by  the  way  he  came,  and  he  never  returns 
on  the  horse  that  brought  him,  a  second  horse  being  sent,  for 
his  homeward  ride. 

The  same  plan  is  followed  when  he  goes  in  caique  or  carriage, 
a  second  being  taken  for  his  return  journey.  I  asked  the  reason 
of  this,  and  was  told  that  it  was  the  custom,  and  that  the  Sultan  had 
certain  superstitions  which  those  around  him  found  it  well  to 
humor. 

Before  the  Sultan's  cortege  came  in  sight  several  carriages 
containing  women  were  driven  rapidly  through  the  gate,  and 
others  came  after  His  Majesty  had  entered.  These  were  the 
ladies  of  the  Imperial  Harem,  all  dressed  in  their  best  clothes, 
and  all  wearing  the  yashmak,  or  veil.  They  were  all  pretty,  or, 
at  any  rate,  their  veils  made  them  appear  so,  if  they  were  not. 

The  Turkish  veil  is  very  thin, — so  much  so  that  it  distinctly 
reveals  the  outline  of  the  face  and  softens  any  tendency  to  harsh- 
ness. It  appears  more  like  a  slice  cut  from  a  cumulus  cloud 
than  like  a  real  tangible  substance  that  costs  money. 

The  Sultan's  mother  was  in  one  of  the  carriages  ;  a  dignified 
old  lady,  whose  beauty  has  evidently  gone  back  on  her,  as  she 
wears  a  veil  thicker  than  those  of  the  Sultan's  wives,  either  full 
rank  or  brevet.  She  is  a  true  believer  of  the  old  school ;  she 
believes  most  emphatically  in  the  impurity  of  the  Christian  dogs, 
though  she  is  open  to  reason  sometimes  when  her  son  takes  her 
in  hand. 

When  Eugenie,  Empress  of  the  French,  visited  Constantino- 
ple, she  was  received  by  the  Sultan  with  high  honor  as  the 
representative  of  His  (then)  Majesty,  Louis  Napoleon.  She  was 
presented  to  the  Sultan's  mother,  and  when  the  introduction  was 
pronounced  Eugenie  stepped  gracefully  forward  and  kissed  the 
old  lady. 

The  O.  L.  was  taken  by  surprise,  and  did  not  know  what 
was  coming  till  the  smack  of  affection  had  touched  her  forehead, 
She  was  on  her  ear  instantly,  and  with  a  howl  of  anger  and  con- 
tempt pushed  Eugenie  from  her,  and  then  turned  on  her  heel  and 
stalked  out  of  the  room. 


AN  IMPERIAL  BUTCHER. 


152 

The  situation  was  an  awful  one.  Eugenie's  Spanish  blood 
rose  to  about  211^  Fahrenheit,  and  it  was  a  struggle  for  her  to 
keep  it  from  passing  the  boiling  point.  But  as  Empress  of  the 
French,  she  had  a  position  to  sustain  and  she  managed  to  keep 
her  temper  till  she  reached  her  apartments  in  the  palace  assigned 
to  her.  It  is  said  that  she  had  a  good  cry  when  she  got  there, 
and,  moreover  made  it  lively  for  her  attendants. 

Next  day  there  was  an  attempt  to  patch  up  the  row ;  Eugenie 
was  informed  of  the  cause  of  the  strange  conduct  of  the  Sultan's 
mother,  and  assured  that  it  was  not  at  all  personal,  but  a  matter 
of  religion.  They  wanted  her  to  be  introduced  again,  and  it  was 
stipulated  that  the  Turkish  lady  should  kiss  the  French  one,  and 
try  in  a  general  way  to  make  herself  agreeable.  But  Eugenie 
had  had  enough  and  declined  another  interview. 

The  fanaticism  of  the  Moslems  concerning  the  touch  or  pres- 
ence of  the  infidel  has  largely  disappeared  in  Constantinople. 
Down  to  the  Crimean  war  there  was  much  of  it,  and  many  places 
were  forbidden  to  the  Occidental.  But  the  British  and  French 
soldiers  went  where  they  pleased,  and  when  the  barriers  were 
thus  broken  they  were  not  likely  to  be  restored.  The  Janizaries 
used  to  consider  it  rather  meritorious  than  otherwise  to  stab 
Christians,  while  peaceably  walking  the  streets,  and  other  Mos- 
lems followed  their  example.  But  that  is  a  thing  of  the  past, 
as  the  Sultan  Mahmoud,  in  the  interest  of  civilization  and  hu- 
manity, butchered  the  Janizaries  and  thus  opened  the  way  to 
progress  and  reform.  There  are  still  some  parts  of  Islam,  where 
the  life  of  an  infidel  would  not  be  safe,  but  their  limits  are  nar- 
rowing every  year. 

The  Bairam  festival  after  Ramadan  lasts  three  days,  and  is  not 
unlike  our  Christmas.  The  master  of  a  house  gives  each  servant 
a  suit  of  clothes  or  some  other  presents,  and  the  working  people 
generally  go  round  to  call  on  those  from  whom  they  may  hope  to 
extract  gifts.  Everybody  goes  to  the  mosque  to  say  his  prayers, 
and  friends  who  meet  there  indulge  in  a  good  deal  of  em- 
bracing and  kissing.  They  visit  each  others'  houses  and  have 
a  good  time  generally,  and  altogether  the  festival  of  Bairam  puts 
the  city  in  a  very  picturesque  condition. 


CHAPTER     X. 


THE    MOSQUES— FAITH    AND   SUPERSTITIONS    OF  THE  MUSSUL- 
MANS. 

Among  the  Mosques — Their  Special  Uses — Greek  Burglars,  their  Capture  and  Exe- 
cution— A  "  Firman,"  What  is  it — A  Turkish  Dragoman — A  Relic  of  Ancient 
Byzantium — Its  Name  and  Origin — Taking  a  Portrait — Turkish  Superstitions — 
Worshipping  in  St.  Sophia — Moslem  Fanatics — Counting  the  Minarets — What 
came  of  a  Wet  Pair  of  Boots — The  Judge  in  a  Tight  Place — The  "  Doubter  " 
commits  Sacrilege — Uncovering  a  Sarcophagus — Attacked  by  the  Priests — Bare- 
footed Worshippers — Teachings  of  the  Koran — Cleanliness  and  Temperance — 
Why  Turkish  Women  do  not  go  to  the  Mosques — Why  good  Mussulmans  never 
get  Drunk. 

OIGHT-SEEING  in  the  capital  of  Turkey  would  be  incom- 
v3  plete  if  it  did  not  include  the  mosques.  Mosques  are  to  the 
Orient  what  churches  are  to  the" Occident,  and  are  used  for  the 
same  purpose — the  assemblage  of  the  faithful  for  religious  wor- 
ship. The  Moslem  goes  to  the  mosque  to  say  his  prayers,  when 
he  can  do  so  conveniently,  especially  on  Friday,  which  holds  the 
same  place  in  Mohammedan  countries  that  Sunday  does  in  ours. 
But  the  purpose  of  the  mosque  goes  somewhat  beyond  that  of 
the  church  in  Christian  lands,  and  in  some  respects  sets  an  ex- 
ample worthy  of  our  attention. 

The  church  in  our  country  is  for  worship  only,  and  when  not 
used  for  devotional  purposes,  its  doors  are  closed  or  only  opened 
for  the  visits  of  the  curious.  In  the  Orient  the  mosque  affords  a 
refuge  to  the  houseless  poor,  and  this  is  particularly  the  case  in 
Damascus  and  Cairo,  where  the  Moslem  faith  has  been  longer  at 
home  than  in  Constantinople. 

Most  of  the  mosques  have  large  court  yards  attached,  and  a 

(>53) 


154 


THE    GLORY    OF    MOSQUES. 


portion  of  these  yards  is  roofed  over  to  afford  protection  against 
the  sun  and  rain.  A  visitor  nearly  always  finds  groups  of  people 
sitting  there,  many  of  them  at  work,  with  as  much  ease  and  com- 
fort as  though  in  their  own  homes      Tradesmen  who  have  no 


MOSLEMS  AT   PRAYER. 

shops  of  their  own  frequently  bring  their  work  to  the  mosque,  so 
that  you  nearly  always  find  numbers  of  them  engaged  in  sewing, 
spinning,  or  other  light  occupations.  This  is  particularly  the 
case  in  the  afternoon  ;  and  not  unfrequently  the  mosque,  at  such 
times,  or  rather  the  court  yard  of  it,  presents  a  very  lively  ap- 
pearance. 


A   TURKISH    EXECUTION. 


155 


Groups  of  children  may  be  seen  playing  in  the  court  yard,  but 
they  do  not  play  as  noisily  as  do  most  of  the  Occidental  juven- 
iles, and  consequently  their  sports  are  not  so  annoying  as  one 
might  be  led  to  expect.  In  the  mosque  itself  you  frequently  see 
bales  and  boxes  piled  up  as  in  a  warehouse  ;  these  are  the  pro- 
perty of  persons  who  have  gone  on  a  journey — particularly  on  a 
pilgrimage  to  Mecca — and  have  sent  their  valuables  to  the  safest 
place  they  know.  Articles  sometimes  lie  there  for  years,  and 
the  owners  feel  entirely  assured  against  loss.  A  Moslem  would 
never  steal  from  a  holy  edifice,  and  an  infidel  thief  would  run  a 
great  risk  if  he  attempted  it. 


"  BISMILLAH." 

A  few  years  ago  some  Greek  and  Italian  scoundrels  "put  up  a 
job"  to  plunder  one  of  the  mosques  at  Constantinople.  They 
were  weeks  at  work,  perfecting  their  plans,  and  managed  to  get 
their  plunder  safe  on  board  a  schooner  which  was  waiting  in  the 
sea  of  Marmora,  a  mile  or  two  from  shore.  They  sailed  away  in 
triumph,  but  the  electric  telegraph,  which  has  brought  so  many 
scoundrels  to  justice,  caused  them  to  be  overhauled  at  the  Dar- 
danelles. 

The  schooner  was  captured  and  brought  back  to  Constantino- 
ple ;  the  property  was  returned  to  the  mosque,  and  the  enterpris- 


156  THE    ORIGIN    OF    ST.    SOPHIA. 

ing  gentlemen  who  removed  it  without  authority  received  the 
polite  attentions  of  a  Turkish  headsman.  Not  only  they,  but  the 
entire  crew  of  the  schooner  down  to  the  cook  and  cabin  boy — 
also  a  cat  and  two  kittens — were  decapitated,  without  fear  or 
favor. 

"  Bismillah  !"  (in  the  name  of  God)  shouted  the  executioner 
each  time  he  swung  his  sword.  "  Inshallah !"  (God  is  willing) 
responded  the  attendant,  as  he  gathered  up  the  heads  one  by  one 
and  stowed  them  away  in  a  sack. 

The  mosques  of  Constantinople  are  the  finest  in  all  Islam  ; 
they  crown  the  summits  of  the  hills  of  Stamboul,  and  are  the 
most  prominent  objects  in  the  picture,  as  one  regards  the  city 
from  the  Bosphorus.  To  visit  them,  one  must  be  provided  with 
a  "firman"  or  passport,  and  to  obtain  this  document  the  article  of 
"  backsheesh  "  is  required. 

A  request  must  come  from  the  embassy  or  consulate  of  the 
visitor's  nation,  and  with  this  request  and  the  payment  of  a 
sum  equal  to  two  dollars  for  each  person  of  the  party,  there  is  no 
further  trouble.  Our  polite  Consul-general,  Mr.  Goodenow, 
greatly  facilitated  our  efforts  by  sending  his  dragoman  with  ours 
to  obtain  the  "  firman  ; "  the  consular  dragoman  is  a  personage  of 
great  importance,  all  through  the  East,  and  often  advances  the 
transaction  of  business  with  the  government  bureaux.  The 
passport  thus  obtained  is  good,  not  for  one  alone,  but  for  all  the 
principal  mosques. 

The  most  interesting  and  best  known  of  the  mosques  is  that 
of  Saint  Sophia,  as  it  is  erroneously  called.  It  was  not  called  so 
after  any  canonized  woman  named  Sophia,  but  in  honor  of  divine 
wisdom,  Aj/a  Sofia.  It  was  thus  consecrated  by  its  founder,  Con- 
stantine,  in  the  early  part  of  the  fourth  century,  and  when  the 
Turks  captured  it  a  thousand  years  later,  they  retained  the  title, 
and  call  it  Aya  Sofia  at  the  present  day. 

The  Turks  have  endeavored  to  remove  the  evidences  of  its 
former  Christian  character,  but  have  not  altogether  succeeded. 
In  many  places  one  can  see  the  cross  and  other  emblems  of  the 
western  religion,  and  in  some  instances  the  faces  of  men  and 
angels  have  not  been  entirely  obliterated.  Mohammedanism 
forbids  the  making  of  any  graven  or  pictorial  image,  and  for  this 


A   MOSLEM   SUPERSTITION. 


157 


reason,  it  is  very  difficult  to  induce  an  orthodox  believer,  uncor- 
rupted  by  occidental  heresies,  to  sit  for  his  portrait. 

The  belief  is  that  the  person  who  makes  a  representation  of 
any  living  thing,  will  be  confronted  with  it  at  the  day  of  judg- 
ment, and  ordered  to  endow  it  with  life.  Failing  to  do  this,  he 
will  be  condemned  to  a  locality  I  need  not  mention. 

I  once  endeavored  to  induce  an  Arab  to  stand  in  a  certain 
position  while  I  made  a  sketch  of  him.  He  declined,  and  ex- 
plained through  an  inter- 
preter, that  a  duplicate 
of  himself  would  make 
things  rather  inconven- 
ient at  the  day  of  judg- 
ment, as  there  might  be 
a  difficulty  in  proving 
which  was  which.  I  tried 
to  convince  him  that  it 
would  be  all  right,  as  my 
lack  of  artistic  ability 
would  be  sure  to  save  him. 
After  looking  through  my 
sketch-book  h  e  gained 
confidence,  and  was  wil- 
ling to  take  the  risk  for 
two  francs.  We  com- 
promised on  one  franc, 
and  when  I  finished  the 
picture  he  surveyed  it  and  delicately  hinted,  that  he  was  entirely 
safe  from  harm  on  the  score  of  that  duplicate. 

Most  of  the  Moslem  residents  of  the  cities  visited  by  Euro- 
peans, have  got  over  any  qualms  of  conscience  about  pictorial 
representations,  but  they  still  decorate  their  mosques  after  the 
traditional  manner.  There  are  no  representations  of  living  things 
on  the  walls  ;  nothing  but  texts  from  the  Koran  and  attempts  at 
architectural  elegance  about  the  arches  and  pillars. 

We  left  our  hotel  after  an  early  breakfast,  as  it  was  necessary 
to  pay  our  visit  before  the  noon  prayers,  and  we  had  several 
mosques  to  go  through.     To  describe  them  all  would  be  tedious  ; 


THE    "duplicate." 


158 


MUEZZINS    AND    MINARETS. 


it  was  a  trifle  so  to  go  through  them,  and  therefore  I  will  let 
down  gently.  We  had  a  long  walk  and  were  elbowed  by  a  great 
many  Turks,  especially  while  crossing  the  bridge  between  Pera 
and  Stamboul,  and  followed  by  a  goodly  number  of  beggars. 

The  Turkish  beggar  is  generally  a  fanatical  Moslem  who  would 
not  pollute  himself  by  contact  with  the  infidel  ;  he  would  starve 
rather  than  eat  a  dinner  with  a  Christian,  and  as  to  taking  a 
drink  with  him,  it  would  be  quite  out  of  the  question.     But  when 

it  comes  to  money 
he  makes  no  distinc- 
tion, and  will  receive 
a  Frank  franc  as 
readily  as  a  Turkish 
one. 

The  mosques  of 
Suleiman  II.,  Ah- 
med I.  and  Moham- 
med the  Conqueror, 
(by  whom  Constan- 
tinople was  captured 
in  1453,)  are  magnifi- 
cent edifices,  each 
with  a  grand  dome 
in  the  centre,  and  a 
smaller  dome  at  each 
corner.  The  arrowy 
minarets  rise  around 
each  mosque  and  add 
to  the  picturesque 
effect ;  their  practi- 
cal use  is  like  that  of 
a  bell  tower,  as  from 
the  gallery  near  the  summit  the  Muezzin  chants  the  call  for  the 
people  to  come  to  prayer.  No  bells  are  allowed  in  the  minarets, 
nor  in  fact  in  all  Constantinople,  as  their  sound  is  offensive  to 
Moslem  ears. 

The  mosque  of  Ahmed  has  six  minarets  ;  up  to  the  time  of  its 
construction  the  mosque  of  the  Kaaba  at  Mecca  was  the  only 


MUEZZIN   ANNOUNCING  THE   HOUR   OF   PRAYER. 


BAREFOOTED    WORSHIPPERS.  159 

one  with  six  minarets,  and  as  it  was  the  hoUest  of  all  places 
in  Islam,  it  was  considered  rather  "  off  color  "  for  Ahmed  to  put 
an  equal  number  on  his  own  edifice.  He  compromised  the 
matter  by  ordering  another  minaret  for  the  Kaaba,  and  paying 
the  bills  for  its  construction,  and  thus  it  happens  that  this  mosque 
has  seven  instead  of  six  minarets. 

This  same  mosque,  the  Ahmediah,  is  in  the  middle  of  a  large 
yard  planted  with  trees,  and  affording  a  very  pleasant  shade  from 
the  heat  of  the  day.  The  interior  of  the  mosque  is  simple,  but 
magnificent ;  the  vast  central  dome  is  upheld  by  four  immense 
pillars,  each  more  than  thirty  feet  in  diameter,  and  cut  on  the 
outside  so  as  to  resemble  a  bundle  of  columns.  There  are  half 
domes  opening  into  the  central  one,  and  there  are  numerous 
pillars  of  marble  and  granite,  sustaining  arches  at  the  sides  and 
ends  of  the  building.  The  absence  of  any  decorations,  save  the 
texts  from  the  Koran  and  the  names  of  God,  give  an  aspect  of 
severity  to  the  interior,  especially  when  one  has  become  familiar 
with  the  profuse  adornments  of  Italian  churches. 

The  founders  of  mosques  generally,  but  not  always,  intend 
them  for  their  own  burial  places.  What  is  left  of  Ahmed  I.,  and 
I  fancy  there  isn't  much  left  now,  is  laid  away,  not  in  the  mosque 
itself,  but  in  a  tomb  close  at  hand,  and  forming  a  sort  of  adjunct 
to  the  grand  building. 

We  had  to  take  off  our  shoes  on  entering  it,  just  as  we  did  on 
entering  the  mosque,  and  all  the  other  mosques  ;  we  brought 
along  our  slippers  to  wear  in  these  excursions,  and  our  guide 
walking  ahead  with  six  pairs  under  his  arm,  might  have  been 
easily  taken  for  a  second-hand  dealer  in  foot  gear.  The  Judge, 
the  heavy  man  of  the  party,  had  wet  his  feet  a  little,  and  as  his 
boots  were  very  tight,  he  had  hard  work  to  doff  and  don  them  at 
each  halting  place. 

He  sat  on  the  pavement  in  front  of  a  mosque,  while  the  guide 
undertook  to  remove  the  refractory  boots.  They  stuck  faster  at 
each  change,  and  toward  the  last  it  became  necessary  to  hold 
him,  or  have  him  sit  astride  a  post  during  the  operation.  Other- 
wise the  guide  pulled  him  all  around  the  yard  as  a  country  doctor 
does  a  patient  when  extracting  an  obstinate  tooth. 

We  feared  it  would  be  necessary  for  all  of  us  to  sit  on  him,  or 


i6o 


UNCOVERING    A    SARCOPHAGUS. 


AN    ORIENTAL    BOUT-JACK. 


pile  stones  on  him  while  the  guide  pulled,  but  happily  this  did  not 
become  necessary. 

The  oft-repeated  dragging  around  on  the  rough  ground  was 
detrimental  to  the  trowsers  of  the  Judge,  and  he  was  obliged  to 

have  them  half-soled 
before  he  again  wore 
them. 

When  we  were  at 
the  tomb  of  Ahmed, 
which    contained    a 
sarcophagus,  covered 
with  magnificent  and 
costly   shawls,    and 
was  surmounted  with 
the  turban  of  the  de- 
funct    Sultan,    our 
sceptical  comrade, 
the   "  Doubter,"   ex- 
pressed a  suspicion  that  the  ruins  of  Ahmed  were  not  in  the  box. 
"These  people  are  all  liars,"  said  he,  "  and  I  don't  believe  there 
ever  was  such  a  man." 

We  tried  to  convince  him  that  it  was  all  right,  and  as  he  had 
paid  for  entering,  he  was  at  liberty  to  believe  what  he  pleased. 

"Tell  the  man  to  open  the  place  up,"  said  the  "Doubter"  to 
our  guide,  "  and  let  us  see  what  there  is  inside." 

The  guide  tried  to  inform  him,  that  such  a  proceeding  would 
be  contrary  to  custom,  but  the  "  Doubter"  was  obstinate  and 
determined  to  have  things  his  own  way. 

"  I  am  bound  to  find  out  for  myself,"  he  continued,  and  suiting 
the  action  to  the  word,  he  endeavored  to  lift  one  of  the  shawls 
that  covered  the  sarcophagus. 

The  moment  his  purpose  became  evident,  the  custodians 
seized  his  hands,  and  half  a  dozen  Moslems  who  had  been  stand- 
ing round  made  a  vigorous  forward  movement. 

They  would  have  ejected  him  in  a  moment,  had  not  our  guide 
interfered,  and  possibly  they  would  have  brained  him. 

It  is  a  serious  matter  to  touch  things  in  a  mosque,  and  this 
experience  taught  the  "  Doubter"  a  lesson  which  he  remembered 
at  least  an  hour. 


WORSHIPPING    IN    ST.    SOPHIA.  l6l 

We  visited  the  tombs  of  several  Turkish  Sultans,  and  finally 
reached  the  mosque  of  Saint  Sophia,  a  little  before  noon,  so  as  to 
make  a  hasty  survey  of  the  lower  part  of  the  edifice  before  the 
people  assembled  for  prayer. 

I  will  not  attempt  a  detailed  description,  as  it  would  be  very 
long,  and  interesting  only  to  an  architect. 

Suffice  it  to  say,  that  the  church  was  originally  very  nearly  a 
square — two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  by  two  hundred  and  twenty- 
five — and  the  height  of  the  cupola  is  about  two  hundred 
feet.  Since  it  was  dedicated  to  the  worship  of  Mohammed, 
minarets  have  been  built  around  it,  and  some  of  the  external 
features  have  been  changed.  There  are  numerous  columns  of 
porphyry,  black  and  white  marble,  Egyptian  and  other  granite, 
and  alabaster,  and  various  colored  stones.  The  abundance  of 
columns,  the  galleries  at  the  side,  and  the  richness  of  the  interior 
generally,  form  quite  a  contrast  to  the  plainness  of  the  other 
mosques,  and  one  would  hardly  need  be  told  that  he  is  in  an  an- 
cient church  of  Christendom. 

The  mosaics  which  represented  biblical  subjects,  have  been 
covered  in  part,  but  to  so  slight  an  extent  that  their  richness  is 
fully  perceptible.  Thus,  for  example,  the  four  Cherubim  in  the 
base  of  the  cupola  are  clearly  visible,  all  except  the  faces,  which 
are  concealed  by  patches  of  cloth  of  gold.  The  same  is  the  case 
with  other  mosaics  where  figures  are  delineated. 

All  mosques  are  built  so  that  the  miJirab  or  altar  placed  against 
one  of  the  walls  shall  be  nearest  to  Mecca,  and  the  worshippers, 
while  looking  toward  this  altar,  shall  be  looking  toward  the  Holy 
City.  Strips  of  carpet  are  laid  upon  the  matting  which  covers 
the  floor,  and  on  these  strips  the  worshippers  kneel,  so  that  they 
are  in  rows  exactly  as  if  seated  in  the  pews  of  a  church.  Saint 
Sophia  was  not  properly  placed  for  Mohammedan  worship,  and 
consequently  the  viihrab  is  at  one  side  and  the  strips  of  carpet 
are  stretched  diagonally,  so  that  they  materially  mar  the  archi- 
tectural effect  of  the  building.  It  is  also  injured  by  numerous 
ostrich  eggs,  which  are  suspended  by  long  wires  or  cords,  and  by 
Moslem  chandeliers,  which  do  not  harmonize  with  the  walls  and 
pillars  of  the  edifice. 


( 


l62  CLEANLINESS   AKIN    TO    GODLINESS. 

As  the  hour  of  prayer  approached  we  mounted  the  gallery  to 
look  at  the  assembled  congregation.  By  twelve  o'clock  the 
mosque  was  fairly  filled — the  worshippers  in  lines  or  files  on  the 
strip  of  carpet,  reminding  one  of  a  regiment  of  infantry,  in  col- 
umns of  companies.  Each  man  brought  his  shoes  in  his  left 
hand  with  the  soles  placed  against  each  other,  and  as  he  took  his 
position  in  one  of  the  lines,  he  laid  his  shoes  in  front  of  him  on 
the  open  space  between  his  strip  of  carpet  and  the  next  one. 
Rich  and  poor  prayed  side  by  side,  and  were  all  considered  equal 
in  the  sight  of  God.  Occasionally  there  was  a  person  with  a 
prayer- carpet  of  his  own,  which  had  been  brought  and  spread  by 
a  servant,  but  these  instances  were  not  numerous. 

The  prophet  is  entitled  to  much  consideration  for  some  of  his 
enactments  which  we  find  in  the  Koran.  Cleanliness  is  enjoined 
upon  the  worshipper,  and  in  compliance  with  this  injunction  the 
Moslems  wash  their  hands  and  arms  before  prayers  ;  and  if  water 
cannot  be  had  for  this  purpose,  they  make  use  of  sand.  This  is 
the  custom  before  the  daily  prayers. 

On  Friday  (the  Moslem  Sunday),  the  true  believer  takes  a 
bath  and  becomes  so  clean  that  he  might  be  used  for  a  dinner- 
plate  on  an  emergency. 

There  is  always  a  fountain  in  the  court  yard  of  the  mosque,  and 
,  here,  those  whose  feet  and  hands  are  not  clean  proceed  to  wash 
themselves  before  entering  the  sacred  building.  The  floor  of  the 
mosque  is  scrupulously  clean,  and  the  removal  of  shoes  or  boots 
is  required,  not  as  a  religious  observance,  as  many  suppose,  but 
in  order  that  no  dirt  may  be  left  on  the  matting.  You  can  wear 
your  boots  in  a  mosque,  provided  you  have  large  slippers  to  go 
over  them,  or  if  you  wear  overshoes  and  remove  them  at  the 
door.  Sometimes  the  custodians  have  large  slippers  which  you 
can  hire,  and  sometimes  they  tie  your  feet  in  napkins,  allowing 
you  to  retain  your  boots. 

"  The  congregation  was  a  masculine  one  ;  the  Koran  does  not 
prohibit  women  from  entering  the  mosque  or  attending  prayers 
there,  but  says  it  is  better  for  them  to  pray  in  private.  It  also 
hints  that  the  devotional  feelings  of  the  men  are  likely  to  be  re- 
duced, if  women  are  near  them  during  the  public  service,  and 
that  it  is  far  better  that  there  should  be  no  such  distraction. 


WOMEN    WITHOUT    SOULS.  1 63 

Mohammed  knew  what  he  was  about,  and  understood  human 
weaknesses  when  he  wrote  the  Koran,  and  prescribed  the  formulas 
of  his  rehgion. 

There  "is  an  erroneous  behef  among  the  Western  nations  that 
Mohammed  denied  women  the  possession  of  souls.  The  Koran, 
in  several  places,  promises  paradise  to  all  true  believers,  whether 
male  or  female,  and  enjoins  women  to  be  faithful  and  obedient  to 
the  laws  of  the  Prophet.  But  as  Moslem  women  are  secluded 
on  earth,  the  natural  inference  is  that  they  will  not  occupy  a 
high  social  position  hereafter.  The  lioiiris,  or  spiritual  wives, 
which  are  promised  to  the  believers,  render  women  of  no  future 
consequence  in  the  eyes  of  a  masculine  Moslem,  and  hence  it  is 
not  likely  that  he  cares  a  straw  whether  his  wives  of  this  earth  go 
to  Paradise  or  stay  away  from  it. 

The  prayers  were  recited  by  an  Iman  or  priest,  who  stood  on 
the  top  of  the  pulpit,  in  company  with  other  priests.  From  my 
position  I  was  not  able  to  see  clearly  all  that  was  done  at  the 
pulpit,  but  I  could  see  that  the  prayers  were  quite  analogous  to 
the  mass  of  the  Catholic  church,  and  included  readings,  chant- 
ings  and  responses,  with  frequent  bowings  and  genuflections  on. 
the  part  of  the  people.  The  congregation  moved  as  a  unit; 
when  one  man  bowed,  all  bowed  ;  when  he  knelt,  all  knelt ; 
when  he  prostrated  himself,  the  rest  did  likewise.  The  service 
was  an  impressive  one  in  every  respect,  and  the  most  casual  ob- 
server could  not  fail  to  see  that  every  worshipper  felt  the  solem- 
nity of  the  place  and  occasion.  ■ — 

The  following  illustration  is  an  txSiCt  facsimile  of  the  opening 
chapter  of  the  Koran. 


.f?>. 


\     e 


,^^j\jSi\      ^ 


>    )^    ^0^ 


J>^V.^ W^  V\^  ^-r^-^^JH^  V5^^  V(yc. CLwvJti \ (Jlij\ ]s>\j^  "^ 

FARTH\,  OR   OPENING   CHAPTER    OF   THE    KORAN. 
II 


164  A    PRAYER    FROM    THE    KORAN. 

This  has  been  anglicized  by  Rod  well  as  follows : 

1  Bismillahi'  rahmani'  rraheem 

2  El-hamdoo  lillahi  rabi'lalameen 

3  Arrahamani'  raheem 

4  Maliki  yowmi-d-deen 

5  Eyaka  naboodoo  waeyaka  nestdeen 

6  Ihdina'  ssirat  almostakeem 

7  Sirat  alezeena  anamta  aleihim,  gheiri-'lmoghdoobi  aleihim 
wala'  daleen.     Ameen. 

Burton  made  a  rhyming  translation  of  the  same,  which  I  here- 
with give. 

1  In  the  Name  of  Allah,  the  Merciful  the  Compassionate ! 

2  Praise  be  to  Allah  who  the  three  worlds  made, 

3  The  Merciful  the  Compassionate. 

4  The  King  of  the  day  of  Fate. 

5  Thee  alone  do  we  worship  and  of  thee  alone  do  we  ask  aid, 

6  Guide  us  to  the  path  that  is  straight — 

7  The  path  of  those  to  whom  thy  love  is  great, 
Not  those  on  whom  is  hate. 

Nor  they  that  deviate.     Amen. 

And  now  let  me  say  a  word  to  the  Infidel,  and  show  him  how 
much  he  gains  or  loses  by  not  being  a  Moslem. 

The  first  article  of  faith  is  :  "There  is  no  God  but  God." 

In  chapter  112  of  the  Koran,  his  unity  is  set  forth  thus :  "Say 
he  is  God,  one  God,  God  is  the  Eternal.  He  begetteth  not,  nor  is 
he  begotten  ;  and  there  is  none  equal  unto  him."  The  Moslems 
believe  that  Christ  was  the  Messiah,  and  brought  the  gospel 
upon  the  earth;  they  do  not  call  him  the  Son  of  God — but  simply 
a  prophet  or  apostle.  They  believe  he  was  taken  up  to  Heaven 
after  having  accomplished  his  mission,  and  that  he  will  come 
again  on  earth  to  establish  the  Moslem  religion. 

The  second  article  of  faith  is  :  "  Mohammed  is  the  Prophet  of 
God." 

The  Moslems  acknowledge  six  prophets — Adam,  Noah,  Abra- 
ham, Moses,  Christ,  and  Mohammed — and  that  each  brought  a 
system  of  revealed  religion.  They  claim  that  each  system  was 
a  true  one,  but  was  abrogated  by  that  which  followed  it. 

Consequently,  Christianity  was  the  true  faith  from  the  begin- 


THE    INJUNCTIONS    OF    MAHOMET.  l6$ 

ning  of  our  era  down  to  the  time  of  Mohammed,  except  when  it 
was  corrupted  by  the  beHef  that  Christ  was  the  Son  of  God. 

They  beheve  in  the  existence  of  angels  and  good  and  evil 
genii,  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  in  resurrection  and  judg- 
ment, in  future  rewards  and  punishments,  in  the  balance  of  good 
and  evil  works,  and  in  a  bridge  formed  of  the  edge  of  a  sword 
over  the  centre  of  hell.  All  must  cross  this  bridge  ;  the  good 
pass  safely  over  and  enter  Paradise,  but  the  wicked  fall  from  its 
centre. 

The  Moslem  faith  is  much  weakened  in  those  parts  of  the 
Orient  that  have  had  familiar  intercourse  with  the  Occident 

Temperance  is  enjoined  by  the  Koran,  but  there  are  thousands 
of  Moslems  in  Turkey  and  Egypt  who  drink  wine  and  spirits 
without  hesitation.  As  the  Moslem  becomes  civilized  and  en- 
lightened, he  generally  proceeds  to  get  drunk  ;  and  the  more  he 
is  instructed  in  the  ways  of  Christianity,  the  drunker  he  becomes. 
Of  course,  there  are  many  exceptions  ;  but  they  only  prove  the 
correctness  of  the  rule,  and  our  missionaries  in  the  Orient  must 
deeply  lament  that  the  injunction  to  sobriety  is  less  severe  in 
Christianity  than  in  the  religion  it  seeks  to  displace. 


CHAPTER     XI. 


WHIRLING  AND  HOWLING  DERVISHES— WHO  AND  WHAT  THEY 

ARE. 


The  Dervishes  of  Constantinople,  What  are  They  ? — How  They  Live  and  What 
They  Do — Unclean  and  Devout  Beggars — Where  They  Bury  their  Dead — Open- 
ing their  Circus — Removing  the  "  Doubter's  "  Boots — An  Amusing  Situation-., 
Clearing  the  Floor — Human  Top-Spinning — Dropping  into  Jelly-bags — A  Pliable 
Lot  of  Living  Corpses — The  Howling  Dervishes — Where  and  How  they  Live — 
A  House  Full  of  Madmen — A  Shrieking  Chant — "  La  Hah  il  Allah  " — Stirring 
up  the  Wild  Beasts — Spectators  Joining  in  the  Chorus — Horrible  Superstitious 
Rites — Treading  on  Sick  Children — Reaching  Paradise  by  Bodily  Tortures — A 
Sad  Disappointment — The  Founder  of  the  Sect  and  Who  He  Was — Pulling  Teeth 
as  a  Proof  of  Sanctity. 

ONE  of  the  stock-sights  of  Constantinople  is  the  performances 
of  the  dervishes,  which  can  be  witnessed  every  Friday 
throughout  the  year. 

The  dervishes  are  to  Islam  what  the  bare-footed  friars  are  to 
Christendom  ;  they  are  men  whose  lives  are  devoted  to  holiness 
and  idleness  in  unequal  portions,  and  they  subsist  upon  charity 
or  from  the  endowment  of  theif  mosques. 

Most  of  the  orders  of  dervishes  in  Constantinople,  Damascus, 
and  Cairo,  have  comfortable  homes  and  very  little  to  do  ;  the 
members  say  their  prayers  daily,  and  devote  an  hour  to  their 
peculiar  worship  on  Friday,  and  beyond  this  they  do  very  little. 
But  there  are  many  dervishes  not  as  well  off,  who  are  obliged  to 
work  or  beg  in  order  to  make  an  honest  living,  and  they  greatly 
resemble  Christian  monks,  in  preferring  beggary  to  labor.  They 
argue  that  they  have  more  time  to  devote  to  religious  observances 

(i66) 


A   VISIT    TO    THE    "  WHIRLERS."  167 

in  the  former  case  than  in  the  latter,  and  therefore  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  less  pious  public  to  support  them  in  idleness.  But  the 
public  does  not  always  see  it  in  this  light,  and  hence  the  der- 
vishes sometimes  find  begging  unprofitable,  and  are  forced  into 
respectable  occupations.  The  dervishes  are  a  lazy  and  uncleanly 
set.  They  profess  to  live  a  life  of  abstinence,  but  I  was  told  of 
cases  where  they  have  been  known  to  drink  rum  with  great  de- 
votion. 

The  most  noted  of  the  dervishes  are  the  Whirling  and  Howl- 
ing sects  ;  sometimes  the  former  are  called  Dancers,  and  the 
latter  Singers,  but  it  is  a  libel  upon  dancing  and  singing  to  call 
them  so.  The  performance  of  the  Whirling  Dervishes  resembles 
dancing  about  as  much  as  a  frog  resembles  a  prairie  chicken  ; 
the  Howling  Dervishes  could  give  a  pack  of  wolves  seventy-five 
points  in  the  game  and  beat  them  easily,  and  their  devotional 
exercises  resemble  singing  as  much  as  the  noise  of  a  monster 
tin-shop  resembles  the  opera  of  Trovatore,  as  rendered  at  the 
London  and  Paris  opera  houses. 

My  first  visit  to  these  gentry  was  at  the  convent  of  the  Whirling 
Dervishes.  It  is  situated  on  the  hill  of  Pera,  close  by  the  prin- 
cipal hotels,  thus  affording  an  agreeable  contrast  to  our  excur- 
sions among  the  mosques  and  bazaars,  which  requires  a  long  walk 
to  Stamboul.  The  convent  covers  quite  an  area,  and  has  a  neat 
garden  and  several  cosy  buildings.  I  was  told  that  the  convent 
owns  several  surrounding  buildings,  and  that  the  income  from 
these  furnishes  a  very  good  revenue,  on  which  the  dervishes  live 
comfortably.  In  the  garden  in  front  of  the  building  there  are 
the  tombs  of  several  "  ex-whirlers,"  and  I  was  told  that  it  is  the 
practice  of  the  monks  to  bury  their  dead  on  their  own  premises, 
instead  of  sending  them  to  the  Mount  Auburn  of  Constantinople. 

These  dervishes  are  a  decent  lot  of  fellows,  much  less  fan- 
atical than  the  "  howlers,"  and  always  ready  to  allow  strangers  to 
attend  their  circus,  on  condition  that  they  leave  their  boots  at 
the  door  and  behave  themselves,  while  the  curtain  is  up. 

Our  party  of  half-a-dozen  went  there  rather  ahead  of  time,  and 
was  obliged  to  wait  in  the  front  yard  for  the  opening  of  the  hall. 
Some  of  the  dervishes  were  around  there  and  treated  us  just  as 
they  treated  the  fence  or  the  gate  posts.     They  said  nothing 


1 68  OPENING    THE    DANCE. 

to  US  nor  we  to  them,  except  that  our  guide  made  a  feeble  effort 
to  ascertain  when  the  affair  would  begin. 

By  the  time  the  doors  were  opened  the  party  of  spectators 
numbered  thirty  or  more — all  strangers  like  ourselves.  There 
was  the  usual  trouble  in  removing  boots,  and  the  "  Doubter  "  was 
obliged  to  call  a  couple  of  Turkish  loafers  to  assist  him  in  getting 
his  feet  in  order,  for  admission.  He  caused  considerable  delay, 
and  it  was  suggested  that  for  the  future  he  had  better  leave  his 
boots  at  home,  and  set  up  for  a  monk  of  the  bare-footed  order. 

When  we  were  properly  un-booted  we  were  allowed  to  pass  the 
doorway  and  stand  in  the  interior  of  the  convent. 

The  building  is  quite  plain ;  the  part  that  we  saw  was  circular, 
and  consisted  of  a  space  in  the  centre  for  sacred  waltzes,  with  a 
floor  carefully  polished,  and  waxed  to  such  an  extent  that  it  lacked 
very  little  to  render  it  useful  as  a  mirror.  Around  this  arena 
there  was  a  low  balustrade,  and  between  this  balustrade  and  the 
walls  was  the  station  of  the  spectators.  Our  party  of  foreigners 
was  allowed  about  a  quarter  of  the  space  surrounding  the  ring, 
another  portion  was  assigned  to  the  musicians,  while  the  remain- 
der was  devoted  to  Moslem  spectators!  Above  this  floor  was  a 
gallery  supported  by  graceful  columns  ;  a  part  of  the  gallery  was 
assigned  to  Moslem  women,  and  there  was  a  loge  or  box  for  the 
Sultan  whenever  he  chooses  to  honor  the  dervishes  with  his 
presence.  At  one  corner  is  a  little  box  for  women,  furnished 
with  gratings  for  them  to  peep  through. 

The  ornamentation  of  the  ball  room  was  as  simple  as  that  of 
the  mosques — no  pictures  nor  statuary,  but  only  texts  from  the 
Koran,  some  of  them  highly  illuminated.  On  the  left  hung  a  large 
board,  like  a  table  of  laws  ;  to  what  use  it  could  be  put  was  a  puzzle. 
Lamps  are  hung  all  around  the  building.  To  the  right  of  the 
place  of  worship,  under  a  projecting  roof,  and  of  an  octagonal 
form,  is  a  marble  fountain,  of  fine  execution.  Here  devout  Mos- 
lems perform  their  ablutions,  before  entering  the  main  theatre. 

We  waited  some  time,  and  it  was  no  easy  matter  to  wait,  as 
we  had  to  rest  like  the  party  at  a  public  dinner  when  somebody 
proposes  the  memory  of  Washington — standing  and  in  silence. 
After  a  while  a  solemn  old  fellow  wearing  a  hat  an  inch  thick 
and  shaped  like  a  sugar-loaf,  entered  the  ring  and  squatted  on  a 


A  PROFESSOR  OF  GYRATIONS.  1 69 

small  carpet  which  was  spread  just  opposite  the  entrance.  As 
soon  as  he  was  seated,  the  rest  of  the  party,  to  the  number  of 
twenty-five  or  thirty,  made  their  entt'ee  and  bowed  very  low  be- 
fore the  first  comer.  He  was  sheik,  or  chief  of  the  lot  ;  the  rest 
were  the  rank  and  file — the  common  fellows  who  were  obliged 
to  wait  his  orders. 

They  did  not  come  in  with  a  rush,  but  very  slowly,  one  and 
two  at  a  time,  so  that  they  consumed  at  least  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
in  getting  into  their  places. 

In  bowing  to  the  sheik  they  bent  their  bodies  so  that  their 
backs  became  horizontal,  and  I  longed  for  a  spirit-level  that  I 
might  ascertain  if  these  fellows  were  on  the  square.  Each  of 
them  wore  a  sugar-loaf  hat  like  that  of  the  boss,  and  like  his, 
made  of  coarse  felt  of  a  reddish  grey  color.  Each  was  wrapped 
in  a  long  cloak  of  dark  blue  cloth,  and  as  they  stood  in  their 
places,  they  held  these  cloaks  tightly  around  them.  Later — after 
the  service  began,  they  threw  aside  these  robes  and  revealed  a 
long  skirt  of  the  same  color,  and  not  unlike  a  hoopless  petticoat  in 
its  general  appearance.  The  skirt  was  wide  at  the  base,  but 
gathered  closely  at  the  waist,  and  the  part  above  the  waist  was 
by  no  means  a  bad  fit. 

The  pra3'ers  began  with  the  sheik  in  the  centre,  and  there  were 
many  prostrations,  bows  and  genuflections  before  they  were 
ended.  Then  there  was  a  chant,  which  was  taken  up  by  the 
orchestra,  in  which  the  only  instruments  were  flutes  and  light 
drums  or  darboiikas.  The  music  was  not  at  all  disagreeable,  but, 
like  all  Oriental  melody,  had  a  good  deal  of  monotony  mingled  with 
its  plaintiveness.  Up  to  the  opening  of  the  music,  the  dervishes 
were  standing  in  the  arena,  and  as  it  began,  they  closed  their 
eyes,  and  seemed  to  be  indulging  in  a  species  of  intoxication. 
In  a  few  minutes  one  of  them  began  to  turn  mechanically,  and  at 
the  same  time  opened  and  extended  his  arms  with  the  palm  of 
his  left  hand  turned  upward,  while  that  of  the  right  was  down- 
ward. 

Scarcely  was  he  under  way  before  another,  and  then  another 
set  his  engines  in  motion,  and  in  a  few  minutes  the  whole  party 
was  under  a  full  head  of  steam.  They  whirled  so  rapidly  that 
the  centrifugal  force  caused  their  skirts  to  expand  and  stand  out 


I/O 


WHIRLING    ON    THE    DOUBLE-QUICK. 


at  a  sharp  angle  to  the  perpendicular,  just  as  you  have  seen 
the  dress  of  a  fashionable  woman  extend  itself  during  an 
exciting  waltz.  Sometimes  they  reminded  me  of  so  many 
pieces    of    machinery  —  their    skirts    forming   a   sort   of   cone. 

These  dervishes  perform 
the  double  feat  of  whirl- 
ing round  and  moving  on- 
wards at  the  same  time. 
Occasionally  they  revolve 
for  awhile  with  both  arms 
extended,  like  windmills. 

Half  of fthem  appear  to 
have  their  eyes  closed,  and 
to  be  dancing  in  a  sort  of 
drunken  ecstacy,  but  some- 
how they  did  not  run 
against  each  other,  and  the 
performance  went  on  in 
good  order.  The  chief 
whirled  a  little  while  with 
the  rest,  and  then  he  moved 
about  in  the  group  urging 
the  slow  ones  to  whirl  fast- 
er, and  occasionally  hurry- 
ing up  the  musicians,  by 
beating  time  with  his  hands 
to  a  somewhat  quicker 
measure.  After  a  while  he  halted  the  music  a  couple  of  minutes, 
and  the  "whirlers"  slowed  down  to  half  speed  and  wiped  off  the 
perspiration.  Several  of  the  "whirlers"  now  drove  back  the 
surrounding  crowd  with  sticks,  and  for  about  two  minutes  I 
thought  there  was  a  lively  prospect  of  a  first-class  row. 

The  halt  did  not  long  continue.  The  chief  gave  a  signal  and 
the  music  began  again  as  lively  as  "  St.  Patrick's  Day  in  the 
Morning,"  for  it  was  in  double  quick  time,  and  made  warm  work 
for  the  gentlemen  engaged.  The  whirling  was  now  in  dead 
earnest,  and  made  the  skirts  expand  like  those  of  the  premiere 
danseuse  executing  2.  pas  seul,  when  she  revolves  across  the  stage 


A  WHIRLING   DERVISH. 


DERVISHES    REDUCED    TO   JELLY. 


171 


in  her  fi^iale  which  is  to  secure  her  the  thundering  plaudits  of 
the  audience. 

They  whirled. 

And  whirled. 

And  they  kept  on  whirling. 

And  they  whirled  some  more. 

And  they  kept  it  up  until  the  brains  of  the  spectators  were  in 
a  whirl,  and  some  of  them  (spectators,  not  brains)  had  their 
money's  worth  and  went  away. 

After  a  while  one  of  the  der\-ishes  threw  up  the  sponge  (fig- 
uratively), by  sinking  down  on  the  floor  in  a  state  of  exhaustion 
and  perspiration. 
He  w^as  as  pliable 
as  a  jelly-fish,  and 
the  attendants 
who  came  to  his 
relief  handled 
him  with  care 
through  an  appar- 
ent fear  that  he 
would  drop  to 
pieces.  Soon 
another  fell,  and 
then  a  third,  and 
then  a  fourth,  and 
then  the  chief 
gave  the  signal  for  stopping  the  roulette.  The  dervishes  had 
been  on  the  whirl  nearly  twenty  minutes,  and  were  quite  ready 
to  finish  the  game.  Towards  the  end  I  noticed  that  the  toes  of 
some  of  them  were  terribly  cramped,  and  the  veins  of  their  feet 
swollen  like  drum  cords. 

They  gathered  up  their  morning  wrappers,  and  after  bowing 
profoundly  to  their  chief,  walked  slowly  from  the  room.  This 
was  the  end  of  the  affair,  and  we  returned  to  the  outer  door  where 
we  mounted  our  boots,  paid  our  "backsheesh"  and  departed^ 

None  of  these  dervishes  were  corpulent,  but  whether  from 
accident  or  design  I  am  unable  to  say.  They  were  all  of  a  lean 
and  hungry  build,  and  all  were  pale  in  the  face  except  one,  who 


EFFECT  OF  TOO   MUCH   WHIRLING. 


172  A   QUEER    SUGGESTION. 

was  a  negro,  and  couldn't  have  paled  however  much  he  wished 
to.  Their  exercise  is  not  calculated  to  develop  obesity,  and  if 
one  should  grow  fat  he  would  be  obliged  to  change  his  profession, 
as  he  couldn't  keep  up  with  the  rest  without  killing  himself  with 
overwork.  Their  faces  were  not  prepossessing  as  a  general 
thing  ;  some  had  a  pleasing  cast  of  features,  but  the  majority 
were  of  an  aspect  decidedly  forbidding. 

Before  we  left  the  place  I  told  our  guide  that  I  could  give  the 
chief  a  hint  which  might  be  of  service  to  him. 

"  Tell  the  sheik  that  we  have  machinery  in  America  which  we 
use  for  drying  clothes  in  large  laundries.  The  clothes  are  put 
into  a  cylinder  which  revolves  above  five  thousand  times  a 
minute,  and  throws  the  moisture  out  by  the  centrifugal  force." 

"  Yes,  but  that  no  good  would  be  for  ze  dervish.  He  dry  his 
clothes  just  like  somebody  else,  and  no  have  much  clothes  to 
dry." 

"Not  for  his  clothes,"  I  replied,  "but  for  the  service  we  have 
just  attended.  Let  them  erect  such  a  machine  in  their  ball-room, 
and  have  it  large  enough  to  hold  all  the  worshippers.  Put  them 
inside  and  start  the  engine,  and  they  could  do  more  whirling  in 
fifteen  minutes  than  they  can  do  in  a  week  in  the  old  fashioned 
way." 

"  I  think  ze  Moslem  no  like  such  machine,  but  I  speak  to  ze 
sheik  next  time  I  see  him.     How  much  cost  one  machine  .-' " 

I  went  on  to  explain  its  cost  and  advantages  to  the  innocent 
guide,  who  did  not  suspect  that  he  was  being  hoaxed.  Whether 
he  spoke  to  the  dervishes  about  it  or  not,  I  am  unable  to  say,  but 
at  all  events  he  never  made  any  report  of  the  matter  to  me. 

The  "  Howling  Dervishes"  are  another  sort  of  devotees.  Their 
convent  where  I  visited  them  was  more  like  a  mosque  than  was 
that  of  the  Whirlers,  as  it  was  much  larger  and  had  a  high  roof. 
The  walls  were  bare  of  ornament,  except  of  inscriptions  from  the 
Koran  ;  on  the  side,  where  stood  the  altar,  there  was  a  lot  of  im- 
plements of  warfare,  including  spears,  arrows,  old  matchlocks, 
swords  and  various  other  odds  and  ends,  all  of  an  ancient  appear- 
ance. We  went  through  the  usual  process  of  leaving  our  boots 
at  the  door,  but  we  were  not  obliged  to  stand  during  the  per- 
formance. A  polite  attendant  brought  chairs  enough  for  seating 
all  the  strangers,  and  thus  made  us  comfortable. 


HOWLING    DERVISHES. 


173 


There  were  about  fifty  worshippers,  and  they  stood  in  a  semi- 
circle, with  their  chief  inside.  He  began  a  low  chant  which  in- 
cluded one  of  the  chapters  of  the  Koran,  and  was  joined  in  the 
chant  by  the  rest  of  the  party. 

At  each  verse  they  threw  their  heads  forward,  with  a  jerk,  and 
immediately  threw  them  backwards.  The  chant  was  very  soon 
concluded,  and  without  any  pause  the  chief  started  the  formula, 
"LA  Hah!  il  Alla  !  " 

Now  we  began  to  understand  why  these  pious  individuals  were 
called  "howlers,"  The  sound  that  they  produced  was  more  like 
the  noise  of  a  menagerie,  when  the  keeper  stirs  up  the  beasts. 


HOWLING  AS  A   PROFESSION. 

than  like  the  tones  of  the  human  voice.  It  was  a  rough  and  rather 
prolonged  bark  and  howl,  in  which  the  word  Allah !  was  all  that 
could  be  understood.  The  movement  of  the  head  became  an 
inclination  of  the  whole  body  from  the  hips  upward  ;  at  one 
instant  the  men  were  bent  nearly  double,  and  at  the  next  they 
had  their  heads  thrown  forward,  so  that  their  faces  were  hori- 
zontal, and  there  seemed  a  probability  that  the  worshippers  would 
fall  backward. 

They  had  removed  their  turbans,  as  no  head-dress  could  stand 
this  wild  motion,  unless  glued  or  nailed  on.  Many  of  them  wore 
their  hair  long,  and  the  masses  of  chevehtre  swung  in  the  air  like 


174  A  DISAGREEABLE  SPECTACLE. 

SO  many  dirty  mops,  from  which  a  kitchen-maid  is  endeavoring 
to  shake  the  superfluous  water. 

The  noise  became  frightful,  and  several  ladies  of  the  visiting 
party,  as  well  as  some  of  the  gentlemen,  had  their  money's  worth 
in  a  very  little  while. 

Every  minute  or  two  some  of  the  dervishes  fell  exhausted  to 
the  floor  ;  two  foamed  at  the  mouth  and  became  wildly  insane, 
so  that  it  was  necessary  for  others  to  hold  them,  or  carry  them 
out  of  the  room. 

There  were  several  negroes  in  the  room,  and  I  observed  that 
they  howled  the  worst  and  were  first  to  become  frenzied.  They 
raved  like  mad  men,  and  indeed  they  were  for  a  time  furiously 
mad.  I  am  sure  Bedlam  would  be  considered  a  quiet  and  well- 
behaved  place,  in  comparison  with  the  mosque  of  the  "  Howling 
Dervishes." 

There  were  fifty  or  more  IMoslem  spectators,  and  some  of  those 
on -lookers  became  so  excited  that  they  joined  in  the  service  and 
soon  were  as  frenzied  as  the  rest.  Among  them  was  a  soldier 
— a  negro — who  had  not  been  five  minutes  in  the  charmed  circle 
before  he  fell  writhing  to  the  floor,  and  foamed  at  the  mouth,  as 
though  he  had  swallowed  an  entire  soda  fountain. 

The  spectacle  is  far  more  disagreeable  than  that  of  the  whirl- 
ing dervishes.  You  want  to  go  away,  and  you  are  held  there  by 
a  strange  fascination  ;  you  cannot  imagine  how  things  can  be  any 
worse  than  they  are  five  minutes  after  the  howling  has  begun, 
and  yet  yovi  know  perfectly  well  that  it  will  be  much  worse  before 
the  end.  You  feel  that  you  have  had  enough  and  you  want  to 
go,  and  then  you  feel  that  you  ought  to  stay,  as  you  will  miss 
some  of  the  fun  by  leaving. 

I  don't  know  a  place  where  one  is  more  swayed  by  conflicting 
emotions  than  while  assisting  at  the  devotional  exercises  of  these 
gentlemen.  I  think  an  American  or  Englishman  feels  very  much 
as  did  the  tender-hearted  Romans  (if  there  were  any),  at  the 
gladiatorial  combats  in  the  Coliseum,  or  at  the  matinees,  where 
the  Christians  "  on  the  half-shell"  were  served  up  to  tigers  that 
had  been  on  short  rations  for  a  fortnight. 

Civilization  in  its  advance  into  the  Orient  has  robbed  these 
dervish-entertainments    of   some   of   their  interesting   features. 


DANCING    ON    SICK    CHILDREN. 


175 


While  the  howling  was  going  on,  people  used  to  bring  sick  per- 
sons, particularly  children,  and  place  them  on  a  sheepskin  spread 
on  the  floor  inside  the  semi-circle.  The  chief  stood  upon  these 
invalids  and  danced  about  on  them,  and  this  homoeopathic  treat- 
ment was  supposed  to  do  the  patients  much  good.  If  they  re- 
covered, it  was  natural  enough  that  their  cure  should  be  consid- 
ered miraculous  ;  if  they  died  it  was  in  accordance  with  the  will 
of  God,  and  the  dervishes  could  not  be  blamed  for  an  occasional 
failure. 

Then  they  used  to  wrap  barbed  chains  around  themselves,  or 
around  any  person  who  had  an 
inquiring  turn  of  mind  and 
wished  to  make  an  experiment. 
They  took  down  some  of  the 
swords  and  spears,  and  stuck 
the  points  into  their  arms  and 
legs  without  manifesting  any 
pain.  In  fact,  they  practiced  a 
variety  of  tortures,  or  w^hat 
seemed  so  to  the  infidel  spec- 
tator. 

When  I  went  to  the  show 
that  day,  I  was  expecting  a 
delightful  time,  as  I  had  been 
reading  a  book  in  which  all 
these  entertainments  were  de-  ' 
scribed.  Soon  after  we  entered 
the  mosque,  an  officer  with  a  couple  of  policemen  at  his  side, 
came  into  the  room  and  took  his  place  against  the  wall,  and  inside 
the  semi-circle,  which  was  just  then  forming. 

"What  is  that  officer  here  for.''"  I  inquired  of  the  guide. 

"  He  comes  to  regulate  the  behavior  of  the  dervishes.  To 
see  that  they  do  not  tread  on  sick  children,  as  they  used  to  do, 
and  to  prevent  the  devotees  from  lacerating  themseh'es." 

"And  shall  we  have  no  tortures  to-day .-'" 

"  None  at  all.     The  government  forbids  it." 

Imagine  my  disappoinment.  I  had  expected  to  lunch  full  of 
horrors,  without  returning  to  the  hotel,  and  here  I  was  cut  down 


HOMCEOPATHIC  TREATMENT. 


176  EYELESS    MUSSULMANS. 

to  seeing  a  lot  of  grown  men  make  temporary  maniacs  of  them- 
selves, and  to  hear  the  worst  human  howling  that  ever  saluted 
my  ears.  All  the  beautiful  pictures  that  my  fancy  had  painted 
of  seeing  sick  children  trodden  under  the  feet  of  the  priests, 
and  pious  devotees  cutting  themselves  with  swords  and  spears, 
had  quite  vanished  and  would  never  be  realized. 

The  age  of  sentiment  is  gone.  Shall  we  ever  welcome  its 
return  ? 

The  Oriental  governments  are  slow  to  move,  but  they  do  move 
after  all.  Moslem  fanaticism  is  every  year  diminishing,  and 
many  of  its  cruelties  are  brought  to  an  end.  Occidental  civili- 
zation in  its  aggressive  course  has  accomplished  much,  and  will 
do  more  as  time  rolls  on. 

Most  of  these  sects  are  not  held  in  great  esteem  by  the  people, 
though  there  are  many  Moslems  who  believe  that  the  whirling, 
howling,  and  other  performances  of  these  gentry,  are  caused  by 
divine  inspiration,  and  consequently  should  be  held  in  reverence. 

The  Turkish  government  has  on  several  occasions  contem- 
plated the  suppression  of  some  of  the  orders  of  dervishes,  par- 
ticularly those  that  possess  considerable  wealth.  There  are 
persons  uncharitable  enough  to  suppose  that  this  contemplated 
suppression  is  induced  by  the  fact  that  the  property  of  the  der- 
vishes would  revert  to  the  government  in  case  the  sects  were 
discontinued. 

Some  of  the  sects  have  a  great  deal  of  fasting  and  prayer,  and 
make  their  ceremonies  interesting  by  the  addition  of  various 
bodily  tortures.  It  is  said  that  a  sect  was  founded  in  the  first 
century  of  the  Hegira  by  a  holy  man  named  Uvies.  Among 
other  farewells  to  worldly  pleasures,  he  required  his  followers  to 
draw  all  their  teeth,  in  remembrance  of  the  Prophet's  loss  of  two 
teeth  at  a  battle  on  behalf  of  Islam,  Painless  dentistry  was  not 
then  in  vogue,  as  nobody  had  discovered  chloroform,  ether,  or 
laughing  gas.  Uvies  did  not  get  very  far  with  his  sect,  and  it 
expired  soon  after  his  death.  Another  pious  Moslem  tried  to 
start  a  sect  of  dervishes  in  which  every  member  should  have  his 
eyes  put  out  during  the  ceremony  of  initiation.  He  was  obliged 
to  be  chief  and  all  hands,  as  he  never  found  anybody  to  join  his 
order.     The  devout  Mohammedans  couldn't  see  it. 


CHAPTER     XII. 

ON  THE  BOSPHORUS.— AMONG  THE  ISLES  OF  GREECE. 

Far- Away  Moses,  the  Famous  Guide — His  Numerous  Brothers — His  Shop  in  the 
Great  Bazaar — An  Evening  at  the  "  Foreign  Club  ' — Dreaming  of  Polyglots  and 
the  Tower  of  Babel — More  "Backsheesh" — Passing  the  Custom  House — How  they 
Protect  Home  Manufactures — Standing  Up  for  One's  Own  Country — "  Honesty 
ish  te  Besht  Bolicy'"— Borrowing  Money  at  Twenty  per  cent. — The  Start  from 
Constantinople— A  hint  to  Travelers— Sleeping  in  Public  on  the  Stage— Inter- 
viewing the  Purser — A  Satisfactory  Arrangement — Baron  Bruck  and  his  Career — 
Unwelcome  Intruders — Classic  Ground— One  Trifling  Peculiarity. 


1HAD  "  done"  the  sights  of  Constantinople — bazaars,  mosques, 
dogs,  dervishes  and  other  things — and  was  ready  to  depart. 

I  had  even  "done"  and  been  "  done"  by  Far- Away  Moses,  the 
famous  guide  whom  Mark  Twain  has  sent  down  to  posterity,  and 
had  bought  several  articles  in  his  shop. 

Moses  is  guide  and  merchant,  and  when  he  is  not  attending 
to  business  in  the  one  branch  he  is  attending  to  it  in  the  other. 

He  is  a  dignified  Oriental  with  a  Jewish  cast  of  features,  and 
he  bows  in  a  way  that  Mr.  Turveydrop  would  envy.  He  has  a 
shop — one  shop — in  the  Great  Bazaar,  but  a  stranger  might  sup- 
pose that  he  owned  half  of  Constantinople. 

The  guides  and  runners  are  on  the  lookout  for  Americans  and 
are  always  ready  to  take  them  to  the  shop  of  Far- A  way  Moses. 
The  joke  of  the  matter  is  that  they  take  them  somewhere  else, 
where  they  can  get  a  larger  commission  on  purchases,  and  invaria- 
bly tell  you  that  it  is  the  shop  of  the  venerable  F.  A.  M.,  Esq. 
If  you  are  familiar  with  the  features  of  Moses,  they  tell  you  he  is 
just  out  but  you  can  trade  quite  as  well  with  his  brother  who  is 

(177) 


178 


FAR-AWAY    MOSES. 


on  hand  to  accommodate  you.  But  if  you  have  not  met  the  orig- 
inal you  are  introduced  to  some  English-speaking  Turk,  Jew,  or 
Christian  who  affectionately  inquires  after  Mark  Twain  and  hopes 
he  is  well  and  happy. 

I  think  about  seven  dozen  "  brothers  of  Far-Away  Moses" 
were  pointed  out  to  me,  and  they  resembled  him,  each  other,  and 

themselves,  about  as  much 
g^^^n^'^^iS^"^  as  a  cup  of  coffee  resembles 
a  row  of  mixed  drinks  in  an 
American  bar  room.  Moses 
admits  that  like  the  friend 
of  Toodles  "  he .  had  a 
brother"  but  he  denies  fra- 
ternal relations  with  all  the 
"brothers"  that  hang  about 
the  bazaars  and  hotels. 

Moses  narrates  an  expe- 
rience of  his  mercantile  life 
such  as  we  sometimes  hear 
of  in  America.  He  shipped 
a  lot  of  goods  to  Vienna  at 
the  time  of  the  Exposition, 
and  on  these  goods  he  fig- 
ured a  handsome  profit  on 
his  mental  slate.  They  were 
sent  by  steamer  to  Trieste,  and  thence  by  rail  to  Vienna.  On  ar- 
ival  the  boxes  were  found  to  contain  old  iron,  straw,  and  pieces 
of  wood,  and  Moses  was  in  great  grief,  for  the  original  lot  had 
cost  him  about  six  hundred  pounds  sterling. 

He  tried  to  recover,  but  the  two  companies — steamboat  and 
railway — played  "  Spenlow  and  Jorkins"  on  him  most  admirably. 
Each  said  that  the  robbery  must  have  occurred  while  the  boxes 
were  in  charge  of  the  other  concern,  and  after  much  trouble 
Moses  received  nothing  by  way  of  indemnity.  Neither  company 
would  pay  a  centime  until  the  locality  of  the  robbery  had  been 
proved,  and  as  this  could  not  be  shown,  there  was  no  payment. 
And  to  add  to  the  loss  he  could  not  even  recover  the  freight 
charges,  which  he  had  paid  in  full  before  removing  the  boxes 
from  the  railway  station  and  discovering  his  loss. 


SOME   OF   THE  BROTHERS  OF  FAR-AWAY  MOSES. 


A    CLUB-COSMOPOLITAN.  1/9 

It  rained  cats  and  dogs  for  two  days  before  I  left,  and,  as  Turk- 
ish sight-seeing  requires  fair  weather,  I  was  kept  imprisoned 
most  of  that  time  in  the  hotel.  Our  Consul-General,  Mr.  Good- 
enow,  kindly  introduced  me  to  the  Foreign  Club  and  enabled  me 
to  break  the  monotony  of  the  evenings  with  a  few  hours  in  the 
luxurious  house  where  the  association  has  its  home.  To  judge 
by  the  appearance  of  the  club,  its  cuisine,  and  other  things,  the 
foreigners  in  Constantinople  know  how  to  live  well,  and  are  de- 
termined to  practice  what  they  know. 

The  club  includes  many  nationalities — English,  French,  Amer- 
ican, German,  Russian,  Italian,  Greek,  Spanish,  Swiss,  and 
others, — in  its  membership,  and  a  visit  to  its  rooms  gives  one  an 
idea  of  the  cosmopolitan  character  of  the  population  of  the  Queen 
City  of  the  Orient.  Turks  are  not  excluded,  a  Turkish  gentle- 
man being  just  as  eligible  to  membership  as  any  other.  Diplo- 
mates,  merchants,  bankers,  government  officials,  gentlemen  of 
fortune  with  nothing  to  do,  and  the  other  miscellaneous  charac- 
ters that  make  up  a  club  in  a  large  city,  were  pointed  out  to  me 
among  the  members  that  dined  and  lounged  in  the  club-house. 

French  was  the  prevailing  language,  but  you  would  hear 
enough  of  other  tongues  in  the  course  of  an  evening  to  make  you 
dream  all  night  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  and  the  unhappy  gentle- 
men that  found  it  a  losing  speculation. 

On  the  morning  of  our  departure  the  weather  cleared  up,  and 
we  had  the  satisfaction  of  bidding  farewell  to  Constantinople  un- 
der a  bright  sky  and  in  the  glow  of  a  warm  sunshine.  Our  bag- 
gage was  piled  on  the  backs  of  some  able-bodied  porters,  and  we 
followed  it  and  them  down  the  hill  of  Pera,  in  the  same  solemn 
procession  as  we  first  mounted  it. 

The  Custom  House  was  lenient  in  consequence  of  a  "  back- 
sheesh" of  two  francs,  and  the  odds  and  ends  that  we  had  bought 
in  the  city  were  not  disturbed. 

Two  of  our  party  had  laid  in  a  liberal  supply  of  Broussa  silks 
and  other  specialties  of  Constantinople,  and  consequently  they 
did  not  want  the  officials  to  be  inquisitive.  They  thought  they 
got  off  cheap  at  two  francs,  and  I  think  they  did. 

And  here  is  a  good  place  to  say  something  about  the  export 
duty  on  Turkish  manufactures. 

12 


l80  A    HINT    FROM    AN    EMBASSADOR. 

The  English,  as  we  all  know,  are  very  earnest  in  advancing 
free  trade  ;  they  have  it,  and  want  everybody  else  to  enjoy  its 
blessings.  Whether  their  theories  are  right  or  wrong  I  do  not 
propose  to  discuss,  as  I  am  not  writing  a  book  on  political  econ- 
omy. England  believes  emphatically  in  free  trade — free  export 
and  free  import — and  every  Englishman  would  tell  you  that  a  tax 
on  manufactured  exports  would  be  the  very  thing  to  cripple  home 
industries. 

I  have  been  informed,  whether  with  absolute  truth  I  cannot 
say,  but  I  believe  my  authority  was  good,  that  the  Turkish  ex- 
port tax  was  imposed  in  consequence  of  the  advice  of  the  then 
British  Minister  at  Constantinople.  The  Turkish  cabinet  sought 
his  advice  as  to  the  best  means  of  encouraging  manufacture  in 
the  Ottoman  empire  and  making  them  a  source  of  revenue. 

"Nothing  simpler,"  replied  His  Excellency  the  British  Minis- 
ter ;  "  put  a  tax  on  your  exports  ;  make  all  your  manufactures  ex- 
ported to  foreign  countries  pay  a  tax,  say,  of  ten  per  cent,  and 
you  will  make  a  handsome  revenue  for  the  treasury,  and  enable 
the  manufacturer  to  realize  such  a  profit  as  to  stimulate  your 
home  industries  to  a  wonderful  extent.  The  protection  and  en- 
couragement of  home  enterprise  is  the  first  duty  of  every  gov- 
ernment. England  keeps  a  careful  watch  over  her  manufactur- 
ing interests  and  does  everything  to  stimulate  them,  and  you  can 
see  the  result  in  the  immense  prosperity  of  our  island." 

The  embassador  was  faithful  to  the  land  he  represented  ;  he 
wasn't  going  to  make  an  ass  of  himself  by  telling  the  Turks  any- 
thing that  would  tend  to  the  injury  of  British  commerce.  If  man- 
ufacturing industry  was  developed  in  Turkey,  it  would  very  likely 
interfere,  in  some  branches,  with  Birmingham  or  Manchester,  and 
this  is  what  no  true  English  representative  would  wish. 

I  like  to  see  a  man  stand  up  for  his  country  and  his  friends. 
If  you  are  a  lawyer  or  bootmaker,  a  doctor  or  blacksmith,  in  a 
country  village  with  just  business  enough  for  one,  you  don't  want 
a  rival  setting  up  there,  and  if  any  young  fellow  wants  to  know 
how  to  start  in  your  trade  and  is  determined  to  try,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  lie  to  him  and  put  him  on  the  wrong  track,  in  order  to  be 
just  to  yourself  and  your  family. 

"  Honesty  ish  de  best  bolicy,"  said  a  clear  headed  German 
once  upon:  a  time,  "  but  it  keeps  a  man  tam  poor." 


TURKISH    COMMODITIES.  l8l 

When  your  advice  is  asked  by  your  neighbor,  don't  fly  away 
with  the  notion  that  you  want  to  do  him  any  good. 

Remember  that  charity  and  all  other  noble  sentiments  should 
begin  at  home,  and  be  careful  not  to  advise  him  to  anything  that 
will  interfere  with  yourself. 

Turkish  manufactures  have  been  for  some  time  in  a  languish- 
ing condition.  In  the  early  part  of  the  present  century  Turkey 
had  several  important  industrial  centres ;  the  most  noted  of  them 
were  Bagdad,  Aleppo,  Dierbeker,  Broussa,  Smyrna,  Scutari,  and 
Tournovo.  Aleppo  alone  had  forty  thousand  weavers  engaged  in 
making  goods  of  silk  or  cotton,  either  mixed  or  single,  and  in 
producing  cloth  of  silk  or  gold  thread,  for  which  Aleppo  was 
famous.  The  city  now  has  scarcely  a  fifth  of  her  former  number 
of  weavers  ;  and  in  the  other  places,  where  there  were  extensive 
manufacturers,  the  business  has  fallen  off  iii  about  equal  propor- 
tion. Improved  machinery  in  England  and  France,  and  the 
heavy  taxes  on  manufactures,  have  caused  the  decline ;  and 
though  the  government  has  sought  to  revive  Turkish  industry,  it 
has  not  yet  succeeded. 

The  export  trade  of  Turkey  consists  mainly  of  raw  materials, 
such  as  wool,  silk,  cotton,  tobacco,  wheat,  drugs,  dyes,  opium, 
honey,  and  sponges.  The  principal  manufactured  exports  are 
carpets  and  red  cloths.  The  value  of  the  imports  is  about  double 
that  of  the  exports,  and  much  of  the  raw  stuff  sent  out  of  Turkey 
comes  back  in  the  shape  of  manufactured  goods.  And  this  state 
of  affairs  is  steadily  increasing. 

Turkey  has  become  so  far  civilized  that  she  has  saddled  her- 
self with  a  stupendous  debt,  borrowing  the  money  in  Europe,  at 
enormous  rates  of  interest,  and  then  borrowing  the  money  to  pay 
that  interest  with.  She  has  about  as  much  prospect  of  paying  it 
as  the  President  of  the  Fat  Men's  Association  has  of  learnins:  to 
fly  and  setting  up  for  a  carrier  pigeon.  She  has  miserable  roads 
all  through  the  interior  of  the  country,  and  only  within  a  few 
years  has  she  given  any  attention  to  building  railways.  She  has 
lots  of  palaces,  and  an  immense  fleet  of  iron-clads  ;  and  when 
any  luxury  is  wanted  she  always  finds  the  money  to  buy  it. 

When  I  was  in  Constantinople  the  further  construction  of  the 
railway,  that  is  intended  to  connect  with  the  Austrian  system,  was 


l82  BIG    BILLS    FOR    IRON-CLADS. 

Stopped  for  the  want  of  funds.  "  The  government  is  very  hard 
pressed  just  now  for  money,"  said  one  of  the  officials,  "  and  our 
docks  and  railways  must  wait." 

A  week  later  the  same  gentleman  met  me  and  volunteered  this 
important  information  : 

"  Six  hundred  sea-coast  breech-loading  cannon  have  been  or- 
dered from  Krupp,  the  great  fabricant  of  artillery,  and  the  money 
for  them  is  to  be  deposited  in  Paris  within  the  next  two  months." 

Krupp  does  not  make  breech-loading  cannon  for  nothing,  and 
he  generally  has  the  money  down  before  he  makes  them. 

Turkey  can  find  money  enough  when  she  wants  palaces  and 
ships  of  war,  but  she  can't  afford  railways  and  docks.  Remem- 
ber, there  are  no  docks  at  Constantinople  where  a  sea-going 
ship  can  lie.     They,  want  them,  but  cannot  afford  the  expense. 

Now  that  I  have  had  my  growl,  we  will  go  on  as  if  nothing 
had  happened. 

We  were  rowed  out  to  the  steamer  which  lay  at  anchor,  with 
steam  up,  and  was  announced  to  sail  at  ten  o'clock. 

For  some  reason  the  departure  was  delayed  until  nearly  eleven, 
and  in  consequence  of  this  detention  there  was  a  row  between 
the  captain  and  chief  engineer.  The  latter  was  responsible  for 
the  consumption  of  coal  ;  he  had  been  told  that  the  steamer 
would  sail  at  ten,  and  it  was  not  fair  to  burn  up  his  coal  while 
lying  at  anchor. 

The  captain  replied  that  he  would  sail  when  he  got  ready. 
Engineer  threatened  to  report  to  the  management — captain  told 
him  to  mind  his  own  business — and  there  were  several  other  re- 
marks of  a  lively  character. 

As  soon  as  the  engineer  retired  below,  the  captain  hustled 
some  of  his  friends  over  the  side,  and  the  steamer  sailed.  The 
threat  to  report  to  the  management  had  its  effect. 

Memorandum  for  travellers  in  the  Orient : 

When  you  feel  that  any  imposition  has  been  practised  on  you 
by  any  high  attache  of  a  steamship,  don't  make  a  noisy  row  about 
it,  but  go  quietly  to  the  one  who  has  offended  you,  and  in  calm 
and  dignified  tones  ask  him  to  give  you  the  name  and  address  of 
his  managing  director.  Give  him  a  card  on  which  to  write  it, 
thank  him  politely  for  the  address  and  walk  away.     In  less  than 


TRICKS    ON    TRAVELLERS,  1 83 

ten  minutes  you  will  obtain  what  you  previously  wanted,  and 
quite  likely  more  than  you  expected.  The  captains  do  not  like 
to  have  complaints  going  to  the  management,  and  will  do  any- 
thing in  reason  to  avoid  it. 

To  illustrate  : — I  one  day  took  passage  on  a  steamer,  and  was 
on  board  half  an  hour  before  she  sailed.  I  went  at  once  to  the 
purser's  office,  paid  my  fare,  and  asked  for  a  room.  Purser  said 
I  could  not  have  a  room,  but  must  sleep  on  a  sofa  in  the  cabin. 

Now,  if  there  is  one  thing  that  I  dislike  more  than  another,  it 
is  to  sleep  in  public  on  the  stage  in  presence  of  a  crowded  audi- 
ence. I  want  a  room  to  myself  when  it  can  be  had,  as  I  know 
that  while  sleeping  I  appear  best  alone.  And  I  always  secure 
my  passage  early  for  this  very  reason.  In  the  present  instance, 
I  had  visited  the  office  of  the  company  in  a  vain  effort  to  secure 
a  place.  The  agent  told  me  the  tickets  were  sold  only  by  the 
purser. 

On  the  back  of  my  ticket  was  the  announcement  that  no  room 
could  be  secured  until  paid  for.  I  waited  around  the  office,  and 
after  the  boat  left  the  port,  half-a-dozen  men,  of  the  same 
nationality  as  the  purser,  came  and  paid  their  fare,  and  were 
assigned  to  rooms.  Then  I  went  to  the  office  and  complained 
of  unjust  treatment ;  the  purser  said  he  could  do  nothing  for  me, 
and  unless  I  was  careful,  I  wouldn't  have  so  much  as  a  sofa  in 
the  cabin, 

I  went  to  the  captain  and  complained,  and  the  captain  referred 
my  case  to  the  purser. 

Then  I  returned  to  the  purser,  and  put  on  a  calm  exterior, 
though  I  felt  inside  as  explosive  as  an  overcharged  soda-fountain. 

"  Will  you  be  so  kind,"  I  said,  "  as  to  give  me  the  address  of 
the  managing  director  of  this  company .''" 

"  Why  do  you  want  it .''" 

"  I  have  occasion  to  write  him  a  letter  on  business  of  the  com- 
pany." 

"  What  business  .-'" 

"  A  mere  trifle.  Never  mind  what  it  is.  It  will  interest  him, 
and  be  beneficial  to  the  company." 

"  The  name  of  the  managing  director  is " 

"  Please  write  it  on  the  back  of  this  card,"  and  I  gave  him  my 
personal  card,  on  which  to  inscribe  the  name. 


1 84 


AN     EMBARRASSED    PURSER. 


The  purser  turned  red,  pale,  blue,  green,  yellow,  pink,  crimson, 
ultra-marine,  and  scarlet  ;  he  could  have  sold  his  face  at  a  high 
price  just  then  to  a  maker  of  kaleidoscopes.  He  began  writing, 
stopped,  began  again,  and  altogether  was  at  least  two  minutes  in 
writing  the  name  and  postal  direction. 

When  he  had  finished  I  took  the  card,  stowed  it  away  in  my 
pocket,  and  retired  to  the  deck,  where  I  proceeded  to  solace 
myself  with  a  cigar  and  a  study  of  the  receding  shores. 

Two  minutes  after  I  reached  the  deck,  I  saw  the  purser  and 
captain  in  deep  consultation  near  the  wheel-house.  Two  min- 
utes later  the  purser,  cap  in  hand,  came  to  me,  and  said  to  me 


IMI  k\  IE\\  IiNG    A    lUKbER 


that  one  of  the  reserved  rooms  had  not  been  claimed,  and  was  at 
my  disposal.     Would  I  condescend  to  look  at  it  ? 

I  condescended,  and  descended  to  the  cabin.  The  room  was 
comfortable,  and  all  my  fancy  had  painted  it.  I  was  mollified, 
thanked  the  purser  for  his  politeness,  ordered  the  steward  to 
bring  my  baggage,  and  was  speedily  installed  in  the  apartment. 
The  purser  could  not  have  been  more  civil  to  the  governor  of  the 
Fejee  Islands  than  he  was  to  me  during  the  rest  of  the  voyage. 

We  steamed  out  of  the  harbor  of  Constantinople  towards  the 
Sea  of  Marmora. 

First  vanished  the  shipping  in  the  Golden  Horn,  and  the 
never-ceasing  stream  of  people  crossing  the  bridge  of  boats. 
Then  the  irregular  terraces  of  many-colored  houses  in  Pera  and 


GOOD-BYE,    CONSTANTINOPLE  !  1 85 

Golata  were  lost  to  sight,  though  to  memory  dear  ;  and  then  our 
eyes  Hngered  on  Stamboul  with  its  mosque-crowned  hills,  and 
the  Seraglio  palace  with  its  surroundings  of  groves  jutting  into 
the  widening  mouth  of  the  Bosphorus.  The  sunlight  played  on 
the  roofs,  and  domes,  and  minarets  of  Stamboul,  and  brightened 
the  hills  that  formed  the  back-ground  of  the  picture. 

Long  time  the  city  remained  in  view,  but  at  last  it  became  a 
jagged  strip  of  white  in  the  horizon,  then  a  scarcely  perceptible 
streak  like  a  sandy  beach  by  the  sea  shore,  and  then  it  was  lost 
to  sight  altogether. 

I  repeat  what  I  have  said  elsewhere,  that  by  far  the  best  ap- 
proach to  Constantinople  is  by  the  Black  Sea,  and  not  from  the 
Sea  of  Marmora  ;  not  only  as  concerns  the  city  itself,  but  with 
reference  to  the  charming  panorama  of  the  Bosphorus,  which  be- 
comes more  and  more  brilliant  each  mile  that  we  advance,  until 
at  last  the  anchor  drops  at  the  entrance  of  the  Golden  Horn,  and 
we  stand  in  front  of  the  Queen  of  the  Orient. 

The  steamer  that  carried  us  belonged  to  the  Austrian  Lloyds 
(Lloyd  Austriaco). 

The  company  has  a  fleet  of  some  forty  steamers  engaged  in 
the  navigation  of  the  Mediterranean  and  adjoining  seas,  and  it 
has  its  headquarters  at  Trieste. 

In  1833  one  Baron  Bruck  estabhshed  at  Trieste  a  reading: 
room  and  marine  exchange  similar  to  the  celebrated  Lloyd's  at 
London  and  from  which  he  took  the  name.  The  members  of  the 
exchange  became  a  powerful  company  for  commercial  and  indus- 
trial purposes. 

In  1836,  it  estabhshed  a  newspaper  which  still  exists  ;  in  1837, 
it  started  a  line  of  steamers  ;  and  in  1849,  an  institution  devoted 
to  printing  and  art.  It  has  become  a  most  important  association 
and  exerts  a  powerful  influence  upon  the  politics  and  finance  of 
the  Austrian  Empire.  Its  founder  became  the  Austrian  minis- 
ter of  finance,  but  owing  to  certain  jealousies  he  was  removed  in 
i860. 

His  mortification  at  his  downfall  terminated  in  suicide. 

To  travel  on  the  ships  of  this  company  costs  on  the  average 
about  twelve  dollars  a  day  (gold),  inclusive  of  passage,  room,  and 
meals.  Wine  is  charged  extra,  and  the  steward  expects  a  finan- 
cial remembrance  when  you  bid  him  farewell. 


1 86  "the  isles  of  Greece!" 

The  servant  who  has  attended  you  at  table  is  likewise  on  hand 
when  money  is  visible,  and  is  generally  more  civil  then  than  at 
other  times. 

During  most  of  the  day  the  mountains  on  the  coast  of  the  Sea 
of  Marmora  were  in  sight  but  too  far  away  to  be  little  more  than 
outlines.  We  passed  the  Dardanelles  at  night,  while  all  of  us 
were  in  our  bunks,  which  proved  to  be  the  happy  hunting  grounds 
of  many  members  of  the  well-known  sporting  family,  Cimex  lec- 
tularins.  We  were  not  greatly  refreshed  by  our  slumber,  and 
passed  a  unanimous  vote  that  the  next  time  we  were  obliged  to 
travel  on  that  line  we  would  seek  passage  on  another  steamer. 

Morning  found  us  running  among  the  islands  of  the  Greek 
Archipelago,  and  there  was  not  an  hour  of  the  entire  day  when 
we  did  not  have  some  of  them  in  sight.  They  had  a  bleak,  bar- 
ren appearance,  as  they  contained  scarcely  any  trees  on  the  sides 
visible  to  us,  and  the  slopes  of  the  rocky  shores  were  very  steep. 
There  were  not  many  indications  of  inhabitants,  but  now  and 
then  we  could  see  villages  near  the  water  or  perched  high  up  the 
sides  of  the  mountains,  where  it  evidently  required  a  great  deal 
of  glue  to  make  them  stick. 

I  am  somewhat  confused  as  to  the  names  of  the  islands  we 
passed  and  cannot  attempt  to  give  them  all.  I  will  only  venture 
on  Lemnos,  Skyros,  Andros,  Tinos,  and  Kuthnos,  and  I  won't  be 
very  sure  about  these.  There  were  Delos  and  Naxos,  Me- 
los  and  Kimolos,  Mykonos  and  Paros  and  there  were  more  'oses 
if  anybody  wants  them.  We  were  not  a  very  large  party  and 
there  were  more  islands  than  enough  to  go  around.  And  then 
there  were  some  other  islands  that  like  the  lion  in  the  boy's  pic- 
ture book,  couldn't  get  any  prophet  Daniel. 

The  Greek  Archipelago  is  scattered  around  promiscuously;  it 
would  have  been  vastly  more  convenient  if  the  islands  had  been 
set  up  in  rows  like  potato-hills,  but  I  suppose  they  would  not 
have  been  so  picturesque  as  they  are  in  their  present  arrange- 
ment. 

I  observed  one  geographical  peculiarity  and  made  a  note  of  it, 
that  every  island,  without  regard  to  size  or  position,  was  sur- 
rounded by  water. 


CHAPTER     XIII. 

SYRA,  THE  MARBLE  ISLAND.— LIFE  AT  AN  ATHENIAN  HOTEL. 

In  sight  of  Syra— Active  Trade  in  one  Fish— A  town  all  built  of  Marble— The 
"  Doubter"  expresses  his  sentiments— Gustave's  Adventure — Walking  on  One's 
Ear— "A  little  more  beer,  boy  !"  —The  Pirates'  Retreat— Extraordinary  politeness 
in  a  cafe — A  lesson  for  American  Barkeepers — In  the  Stamboul's  Cabin — "  Blow- 
ing great  guns" — A  tale  of  a  Tub — Honey  and  Marble — Standing  in  the  city  of  De- 
mosthenes— The  battle  of  the  rival  hotels — Profanity  in  an  unknown  tongue — Out- 
generaling Inn-keepers— Tricks  on  Travelers — Useful  knowledge  for  Foreign 
Travel. 


A  LITTLE  before  sunset  we  were  drenched  by  a  shower,  and 
through  the  rifts  of  the  heavy  clouds,  I  caught  sight  of  the 
Island  of  Syra,  the  most  important  of  the  insular  possessions  of 
Greece. 

We  entered  the  port  and  dropped  anchor,  a  hundred  yards 
from  the  Stamboid,  an  old  paddle  steamer  which  was  to  convey 
us  to  the  Piraeus. 

Though  we  had  bought  tickets  through  to  the  latter  port  we 
found  that  we  must  make  the  transfer  at  our  own  expense,  it  be- 
ing the  rule  of  the  company  that  all  landings,  embarkations,  and 
transfers  are  at  passenger's  expense. 

We  waited  till  the  rain  ceased  and  then  bargained  with  a  boat- 
man to  take  us  to  the  other  ship  ;  the  transfer  was  an  unpleasant 
one  as  the  boat  danced  uneasily  on  the  water  and  a  fresh  shower 
gave  us  a  very  fair  drenching  while  we  were  en  route.  The 
"  Doubter"  got  the  worst  of  it,  and  was  so  thoroughly  soaked  and 

(187) 


l88  A    PISCATORIAL    SPECULATION. 

frightened  that  he  determined  to  stay  and  keep  ship,  while  the 
rest  of  us  went  on  shore  to  spend  the  evening  in  town. 

What  befell  us  there  will  be  told  subsequently. 

Syra  is  not  a  large  island,  its  greatest  length  being  little  over 
fourteen  miles  and  its  width  in  the  broadest  part  about  six. 
Homer  mentions  and  describes  it  as  the  country  of  Eumaeus,  the 
faithful  servant  of  Ulysses,  and  the  character  of  the  island  corres- 
ponds to-day  with  the  account  given  by  the  "  blind  old  man  of 
Scio's  rocky  isle." 

The  city  which  bears  the  name  of  the  island  is  the  most  im- 
portant commercial  point  in  all  Greece.  Its  population  is  said  to 
be  not  far  from  thirty  thousand  ;  they  are  emphatically  a  com- 
mercial people,  and  when  not  employed  in  legitimate  trade  with 
outsiders,  they  speculate  with  each  other.  While  loitering  on  the 
quay  I  saw  a  man  sell  a  fish  to  another,  the  latter  sold  it  to  a 
third  and  the  trade  went  on  till  the  fish  had  changed  hands  four 
or  five  times.  Whether  the  price  was  increased  by  each  trans- 
action I  am  unable  to  say,  but  am  inclined  to  think  it  was  not 
likely  to  be  reduced. 

Later  in  the  day  I  saw  a  smaller  fish — it  may  have  been  the  old 
one  worn  down  by  manipulation — passing  about  with  a  good  deal 
of  activity.  If  he  could  have  taken  a  commission  each  time  he 
changed  hands  he  could  have  amassed  a  handsome  fortune  and 
set  up  for  a  "  big fisJi'  before  the  end  of  the  season. 

As  I  had  come  from  Constantinople  where  the  streets  are  in  a 
condition  of  wretchedness,  as  regards  pavement  and  dirt,  the 
streets  of  Syra  seemed  to  me  wonderfully  clean.  There  are  im- 
mense quarries  of  marble  just  back  of  the  town,  and  marble  is 
one  of  the  articles  of  export.  Marble  is  cheaper  in  Syra  than 
granite  or  brick.  The  houses  are  built  of  marble,  the  streets 
paved  with  it,  and  the  quay  and  the  wall  that  bound  it  are  made 
of  marble.  You  see  marble  everywhere,  and  after  a  time  you  be- 
gin to  wish  they  would  throw  in  some  other  stone  by  way  of  va- 
riety. 

The  streets  are  paved  v/ith  broad  blocks  and  in  many  places 
these  blocks  are  so  smooth  that  one  is  in  danger  of  slipping  un- 
less he  treads  carefully.  The  gutters  are  in  the  middle  of  the 
streets  instead  of  at  the  sides,  and  every  few  yards  there  is  a 
grated  hole  where  the  water  runs  into  the  sewers. 


A   DELUGE   IN    SYRA.  1 89 

I  could  not  see  the  necessity  of  having  these  holes  so  numer- 
ous until  I  learned  by  actual  experience  how  the  rain  fell.  It 
came  down  suddenly,  as  if  the  clerk  of  the  weather  had  called  all 
hands  and  put  them  to  work  upsetting  a  row  of  buckets  right 
over  Syra. 

It  didn't  rain,  it  poured  and  more  than  poured  ;  the  heaviest 
shower  I  ever  saw  in  New  York  was  the  mildest  premonitory 
sprinkle,  compared  to.  the  rain  at  Syra.  The  sewer-holes  had  all 
they  could  attend  to,  and  it  was  then  that  you  perceived  the  wis- 
dom of  putting  the  gutters  in  the  middle  of  the  streets,  and  also 
the  wisdom  of  having  no  cellar  doors  on  a  level  with  the  side- 
walk. Under  the  present  arrangement  there  might  be,  (and 
quite  likely  such  is  the  case,)  a  foot  or  so  of  water  in  the  street, 
without  doing  damage  to  anybody,  except  to  the  unlucky  pedes- 
trian. 

There  is  a  public  square  in  Syra  paved  with  marble  and  set 
out  with  rows  of  trees  and  beggars.  The  latter  are  less  station- 
ary than  the  trees,  and  not  half  as  pretty ;  I  did  not  see  any  fruit 
growing  upon  either. 

Viewed  from  the  water,  Syra  has  the  appearance  of  half  an 
amphitheatre,  as  the  steepness  of  the  hill  causes  the  houses  to 
rise  in  irregular  terraces ;  there  is  a  depression  in  the  hill-side, 
so  that  the  general  effect  reminds  you  of  the  tier  of  boxes  in  an 
opera  house  when  you  look  at  them  from  the  stage. 

This  is  the  new  town  of  modern  Syra. 

To  reach  ancient  Syra,  you  have  a  great  deal  of  climbing  to 
do,  as  it  is  a  long  way  up  the  hill-side,  directly  above  the  new  town. 
I  was  satisfied  to  do  it  by  proxy,  as  I  had  a  "  game  foot "  that 
complained  when  I  exercised  it  vigorously.  The  judge  and  I  sat 
in  a  cafe,  while  the  rest  of  our  party  climbed  the  hill  and  came 
back  all  red  and  weary  and  thirsty.  Their  calls  for  beer  were 
Uke  the  howls  of  a  lion  in  the  wilderness. 

The  "Doubter"  declared  that  he  had  his  doubts  about  the 
island  being  fourteen  miles  long,  but  he  was  ready  to  swear  that 
it  was  not  less  than  ten  miles  high. 

This  is  what  Gustave  said  about  old  Syra,  and  I  must  rely  on 
him,  as  I  know  nothing  about  it  myself : 

"  You  cross  a  deep  ravine,  and  then  you  come  to  a  stairway  all 


190  THIRSTY    TRAVELLERS. 

of  marble,  and  so  hot  under  the  sunshine,  that  it  would  melt  the 
lid  off  a  copper  tea-kettle  in  the  time  you  could  hold  a  red  hot 
nail  in  your  ear  without  feeling  it. 

Then  we  went  through  a  lot  of  zig-zag  streets,  and  then  more 
of  them,  and  then  some  more  stairs  and  zig-zags.  The  stones 
were  slippery  and  dangerous,  especially  in  coming  down,  and  two 
or  three  times  I  felt  myself  walking  on  a  part  of  my  body  which 
is  not  ordinarily  employed  for  pedestrian  purposes. 

Well,  we  got  to  the  top  of  the  hill  at  last,  and  were  at  the 
church  of  St.  George.  I  was  tired  and  foot-sore,  but  I  think  I 
was  amply  paid  for  the  fatigue  and  trouble.  The  view  was  mag- 
nificent, and  included  the  whole  panorama  of  the  Cyclades. 
{Garcon,  encore  de  la  bier,  sil  vous  plait)  The  guide  pointed 
out  Tinos  and  Mykonos,  Nicaria,  and  Samos,  and  also  Great  and 
Little  Delos.  Off  in  the  distance  were  Naxos,  Paros,  and  Anti- 
paros,  and  they  tried  to  point  out  Siphnos  and  Milos  through  a 
hollow  in  the  mountain  to  the  south  of  us.  Down  in  front  of  us 
there  was  a  beautiful  view — I  wouldn't  have  missed  it  for  a 
great  deal,  and  I  wouldn't  go  up  there  again  for  twice  as  much  as 
I  would  have  missed  it  for.  {Garcon,  encore  de  la  bier.  Coinme 
jai  soif ! )" 

We  had  landed  at  the  quay  in  front  of  the  custom  house  on 
the  evening  of  our  arrival,  and  as  the  rain  fell  by  little  fits  and 
starts,  we  didn't  wander  around  very  much,  but  made  our  way  to 
the  best  ca/e  in  the  place. 

It  overlooked  the  public  square,  and  had  rows  of  seats  on  the 
sidewalk,  which  was  protected  by  a  roof  impervious  to  water. 
While  we  sat  there,  a  member  of  our  party  discovered  an  ac- 
quaintance among  the  coffee-drinkers  at  another  table,  and 
speedily  there  was  a  fusilade  of  congratulations  in  the  accent 
and  language  of  Northern  Germany.  Then  we  were  introduced 
all  around,  and  all  around,  too,  we  had  fresh  glasses  of  beer. 

Our  new  acquaintance  was  a  German,  whose  business  had  lo- 
cated him  at  Syra,  and  the  indications  were  that  he  was  well 
satisfied  with  it.  At  all  events,  he  stood  treat  with  a  liberality 
worthy  of  a  Californian,  and  made  us  feel  that  we  owned  the 
entire  island  and  all  its  contents.  The  quay  of  Syra  is  an  ani- 
mated place,  as  it  contains  many  shops  and  stalls,  where  you  can 
buy  anything  from  a  fish  up  to  a  marine  engine. 


GREEK    BOATMEN    IN    COSTUME.  I9I 

The  Greek  boatmen  are  a  picturesque  race,  with  a  costume 
that  seems  to  be  a  compromise  between  the  Occident  and  the 
Orient.  Their  uniform  is  multiform,  and  you  are  puzzled  to 
know  which  is  which. 

Most  of  the  boatmen  and  sailors  wear  trowsers  with  consider- 
able bagginess,  and  a  sort  of  loose  jacket  over  the  shoulders. 
On  their  heads  they  wear  red  caps  like  the  Turkish  fez,  but  with 
the  top  falling  to  one  side,  where  it  is  kept  down  by  a  long 
tassel. 

In  character  they  are  not  over-trustworthy,  and  they  have  the 
reputation  of  being  ready  to  turn  to  piracy  whenever  it  will  pay 
better  than  honest  work.  In  times  past  their  reputation  was 
worse  than  at  present,  and  they  were  at  one  period  the  terror  of 
Oriental  waters.  Steam  cruisers  put  an  end  to  their  piracy,  as  it 
has  to  that  of  many  enterprising  mariners  elsewhere. 

In  our  first  evening  in  Syra  we  saw  a  couple  of  fights,  but 
they  possessed  no  interest,  as  the  disputants  were  separated  be- 
fore they  had  time  to  disembowel  each  other.  Two  of  the  de- 
scendants of  Homer  and  Ulysses  were  drunk  in  the  cafe  ;  under 
ordinary  circumstances  they  would  have  been  allowed  to  stay 
there,  but  the  proprietor  felt  himself  honored  by  our  visit,  and 
determined  to  eject  his  friends  and  regular  patrons.  He  in- 
formed them  that  they  had  been  sent  for,  and  as  the  night  was 
dark  he  would  allow  one  of  the  waiters  to  escort  them.  They 
fell  into  the  trap,  and  were  quietly  taken  out,  and  the  waiter  re- 
turned after  walking  a  couple  of  blocks  and  leaving  them  in  a 
low  drinking  shop  where  they  wished  to  slake  their  thirst.  The 
whole  business  was  managed  very  adroitly,  and  showed  how 
much  better  it  is  for  a  head  bar-keeper  to  tell  a  lie  than  to  indulge 
in  brute  violence,  in  which  he  might  break  some  of  his  furniture. 

On  this  evening  we  did  nothing  in  the  sight-seeing  line  be- 
yond the  visit  to  the  cafe  and  the  public  square,  the  journey  to 
Old  Syra  being  made  on  our  return  from  Greece.  We  returned 
about  nine  o'clock  to  the  quay,  and  were  taken  on  board  the 
Stamboul,  which  had  her  steam  up  for  departure.  Half-a-dozen 
other  steamers  were  in  port,  and  there  were  thirty  or  more  sail- 
ino-  ships,  so  that  the  harbor  presented  a  reasonably  lively  appear- 
ance.    The  terraces  of  lights  in  the  town  and  extending  to  and 


192  A    STORM    ON    THE    /EGEAN    SEA. 

through  Old  Syra  had  a  curious  effect,  and  made  the  city  resem- 
ble an  illuminated  mountain.  The  light-houses,  which  mark  the 
entrance  of  the  harbor,  were  each  sending  out  a  clear  flame,  the 
rain  had  ceased,  and  the  stars  were  beaming  clear  and  distinct 
in  the  sky. 

Although  in  the  harbor,  the  steamer  was  pitching  and  rolling 
about,  and  we  had  experienced  a  very  lively  tossing  on  our  way 
from  shore  to  ship.  A  regular  vent  du  diable  was  blowing  out- 
side, and  things  indicated  that  we  should  have  all  we  wanted 
when  we  got  into  it  and  were  plowing  our  way  towards  the 
Piraeus. 

Half  a  dozen  passengers  were  sitting  at  the  cabin  table  and 
contemplating  a  bottle  of  Scotch  whisky,  which  they  discussed 
in  a  polyglot  of  languages.  Two  who  were  drunk  imagined 
themselves  sober,  and  two  who  were  sober,  imagined  themselves 
drunk,  so  that  there  was  a  very  mixed  condition  of  things. 
Smoking  was  forbidden  in  the  cabin,  but  as  there  was  only  one 
lady  passenger,  and  she  had  retired,  and  moreover  belonged  to 
our  party,  and  had  a  smoking  husband,  we  lighted  cigars  and 
made  ourselves  comfortable  before  going  to  bed. 

Just  as  I  entered  my  bunk  I  heard  the  anchor  chain  coming 
in,  and  soon  we  were  out  on  the  open  waters.  We  went  along 
nicely  for  a  while,  till  we  had  passed  the  shelter  of  the  Island  of 
Syros  and  then  we  caught  it.  Our  course  lay  between  the 
islands  of  Thermia  and  Zea,  in  the  direction  of  Cape  Sunium, 
which  forms  the  extremity  of  the  Peninsula  of  Attica. 

All  night  long  we  tossed,  and  the  timbers  of  the  ship  creaked 
so  that  you  couldn't  hear  yourself  snore.  Sometimes  we  didn't 
make  two  miles  an  hour,  and  I  could  hear  the  other  passengers, 
in  momentary  intervals  of  creaking,  groaning  and  falling  to  pieces 
in  the  agonies  of  inal-dc-mcr.  In  the  morning  the  captain  said 
it  was  one  of  the  roughest  nights  he  had  ever  known  in  those 
waters.  "Had  I  not  felt,"  said  he,  "the  greatest  confidence  in 
my  ship,  and  known  that  she  was  perfectly  staunch  and  strong, 
I  should  have  turned  back  after  passing  the  Island  of  Syra,  and 
learning  the  strength  of  the  wind." 

And  yet  the  Stamboul  was  an  old  tub,  with  a  quarter  of  a 
century  on  her  head,  and  barnacles  on  her  bottom. 


IN    SIGHT    OF    THE    ACROPOLIS.  I93 

Let  no  one  despise  an  old  tub  hereafter.  I  would  give  more 
now  for  the  one  in  which  Dionysius — no  it  was  Diogenes — used 
to  live,  than  for  the  best  modern  article  of  the  same  sort  from 
the  hands  of  the  most  skillful  cooper  that  breathes,  as  I  could 
sell  it  for  more  money. 

When  I  went  on  deck  in  the  morning  Mount  Olympus  was  in 
sight,  and  we  could  see  the  classic  shores  of  Greece  (expression 
claimed  as  original  and  secured  by  two  patents).  They  were  not 
over-cheerful  in  appearance,  but  the  leaden  sky,  and  the  cold 
wind  that  was  then  blowing,  had  doubtless  much  to  do  with  their 
aspect.  Mount  Olympus  was  less  lofty  than  I  expected  to  find 
it,  and  greatly  disappointed  me,  but  I  felt  better  afterwards,  when 
I  learned  that  the  real  mountain  chain  which  bears  that  name,  is 
on  the  Morean  peninsula  and  between  Thessaly  and  Macedonia. 
The  mountain  which  was  pointed  out  to  me  was  a  small  affair 
opposite  to  Mount  Keratia  ;  between  the  two  is  a  small  village 
called  Olympus,  and  inhabited  by  a  few  Greeks,  and  a  great 
many  fleas. 

Next  we  saw  a  long  mountain  with  a  wooded  summit,  and  were 
told  it  was  Mount  Hymettus  of  history.  This  was  something 
like  a  mountain  and  it  stretched  away  in  a  ridge  toward  the 
north,  where  Pentelicus  lay  in  the  dim  distance.  In  a  little  while 
we  saw  a  sharp  conical  hill  that  marked  the  position  of  Athens, 
and  for  a  short  time  we  had  the  Acropolis  in  sight.  The  shore  of 
Greece,  as  we  skirted  it,  had  a  rough  and  rather  barren  appear- 
ance, and  seemed  to  be  indented  with  many  small  bays.  Not  a 
ship,  not  a  fishing  boat  even,  was  in  sight,  and  our  steamer  ap- 
peared to  have  everything  to  herself.  Certainly  our  first  view 
of  Greece  was  not  calculated  to  inspire  us  with  enthusiasm. 

We  rounded  a  promontory  and  entered  the  Piraeus,  the  port 
of  Athens.  It  is  a  nice  little  pocket  edition  of  a  harbor 
well  sheltered  and  with  good  anchorage.  Ships  of  war  might 
find  a  refuge  there,  but  unfortunately  it  could  not  hold  many  of 
them.  The  town  is  quite  modern,  and  also  quite  interesting ; 
nobody  stops  there  any  longer  than  he  is  obliged  to,  and  when 
travellers  are  delayed  there  by  the  detention  of  a  steamer,  there 
is  generally  a  great  deal  of  growling. 

A  swarm  of  boats  came  out  to  the  ship,  and  as  soon  as  the 


194 


THE    RIVAL    HOTELS. 


quarantine  officers  had  examined  the  health  bill,  and  admitted 
us  10  pratique,  there  was  a  rush  of  boatmen,  dragomen,  guides, 
hotel  runners,  and  the  like,  so  that  the  deck  was  speedily  cov- 
ered. On  an  average  there  must  have  been  six  and  a  half  of 
these  gentry  to  each  passenger. 

We  passed  the  Custom  House  with  the  usual  formalities,  (a 
bribe  of  two  francs,)  and  turned  our  attention  to  the  hotel  runners, 
and  standing  on  the  soil  where  Homer  sang  and  Den*osthenes 
pronounced  his  orations,  we  drove  the  closest  bargain  which  we 
had  yet  made. 

Four  runners  from  as  many  hotels  were  after  us,  and  we  put 
ourselves  up  at  auction  to  the  lowest  bidder,  just  as  they  used  to 
sell  out  the  paupers  in  that  respectable  town  in  New  England 
where  I  was  born  and  bred,  and  instructed  in  the  mysteries  of 
orthography  and  penny-tossing.  They  began  at  fifteen  francs 
per  day  for  each  person,  including  wine,  candles,  and  service. 
The  Hotel  d'  Angleterre  would  take  us  for  fourteen. 
The  Hotel  des  Etraiigers  would  go  one  better  ;  we  should  be 
taken  in  at  thirteen  francs. 

The  other  two  hotels  dropped  out  of  the  competition  and  went 
to  the  rear,  and  so  we  had  it  out  between  the  pair  that  I  have 
named.  The  runners  appeared  to  be  personal  enemies,  and 
covered  each  other  with  epithets  that  were  delightful  to  hear,  as 
we  didn't  know  what  they  meant.  It  is  a  great  pleasure  to  hear 
one  blackguard  abuse  another,  in  a  language  of  which  you  are 
entirely  ignorant.  You  run  no  risk  of  being  shocked  by  the 
coarseness  of  the  phrases,  and  can  quite  resign  yourself  to  a  con- 
templation of  the  gestures  and  emphasis  with  which  the  terse 
little  speeches  are  delivered.  If  I  could  find  the  man  who  offer- 
ed a  reward  for  the  invention  of  a  new  pleasure,  I  would  name 
the  above  amusement  and  humbly  ask  for  the  money. 

We  whiled  away  a  half  hour  in  this  way  very  pleasantly  and 
profitably  ;  all  the  Greek  profanity  that  those  runners  vented  on 
each  other  didn't  cost  us  a  cent ;  in  fact  we  made  money  by  it, 
as  we  lowered  the  prices  of  the  hotels  at  Athens  to  a  satisfactory 
figure.  For  ten  francs  per  day  each  person,  we  were  to  have 
rooms  only  one  flight  up,  and  each  room  should  have  a  balcony. 
We  were  to  be  roomed,  fed,  wined,  candled,  washed,  combed,  and 
attended,  for  that  paltry  amount,  and  we  were  to  have  all  the 


OUTGENERALING  A  LANDLORD.  I95 

candles  we  wanted.  Moreover  they  were  to  make  no  charges 
for  lunches  when  we  went  on  excursions  ;  this  is  a  point  on  which 
hotels  in  the  Orient  generally  lay  it  on  thick  in  the  way  of  extras. 
We  had  brought  them  down  to  their  lowest  terms,  and  almost  felt 
ashamed  of  ourselves  after  we  had  done  it. 

We  started  for  Athens  with  the  question  still  undecided  in  the 
hope  that  we  might  get  a  better  offer  before  arriving  there.  On 
the  way  up  we  developed  a  new  dodge. 

"I've  an  idea,"  I  said  to  my  German  friends;  "suppose  we 
divide  the  party."  "  You  go  to  the  Angleterre,  and  we  Americans 
will  go  to  the  Etrangcrs.  The  hotels  are  close  together,  so  that 
we  can  talk  across  from  the  windows,  and  we  will  then  play  the 
houses  against  each  other." 

•'Very  good,"  replied  Charley,  "just  the  thing.  Evidently  the 
competition  between  them  is  exceedingly  bitter,  and  they  are 
ready  to  cut  each  other's  throats." 

So  it  was  agreed  that  we  were  to  divide.  We  did  not  leave 
the  carriages  until  the  proprietors  had  ratified  the  agreements 
made  by  their  runners,  and  we  did  not  allow  the  baggage  taken 
out  till  we  had  seen  and  accepted  the  rooms. 

At  the  Hotel  des  Etrangers  they  were  sorry,  very  sorry,  but 
they  had  only  one  room  with  a  balcony,  and  that  was  on  the 
the  second  floor. 

"Very  well,  then,"  I  said,  "we  will  see  what  our  friends  can  do 
at  the  other  hotel,"  and  I  turned  to  go  to  the  carriage  where  I 
had  left  the  Judge  to  look  after  the  "  Doubter,"  and  the  other 
baggage. 

"  Stop,  gentlemen,"  said  the  proprietor  ;  "I  give  you  nice  back 
rooms  on  first  floor." 

"  That  will  never  do,"  I  replied,  as  I  placed  my  hand  on  the 
carriage  door. 

"  I  just  thinks,"  said  the  proprietor,  "  I  have  single  one  balcony 
room  on  first  floor  mit  two  beds." 

"  Never !  we  want  three  rooms  with  balconies  on  first  floor," 
and  I  opened  the  carriage  door. 

"  You  sell  have  two  rooms  mit  three  beds." 

"  Never !  that  will  not  do,"  and  I  entered  the  carriage,  and  told 
the  driver  to  drive  on. 
13 


1^6  travellers'  strategy. 

"  Oh,  gentlemens,  I  just  thinks  ;  stop — one  gentleman  go  away 
zis  night  and  you  have  ze  three  rooms  as  you  want.  Dat  is  all 
right." 

We  entered  and  took  possession,  and  the  landlord  was  all  po- 
liteness. 

Our  German  friends  had  almost  identically  the  same  perform- 
ance at  the  Hotel  d'  Angleterre,  and  with  the  same  result. 

The  rivalry  of  these  two  hotels  was  of  a  bitterness  rarely  seen 
in  cities  ;  it  resembled  the  hostility  of  two  country  boys  when 
both  are  sweet  on  the  same  girl.  No  servant  of  one  establish- 
ment was  allowed  to  enter  the  other,  and  when  we  sent  messa- 
ges requiring  answers,  the  bearer  was  obliged  to  wait  outside  the 
front  door,  while  the  porter  of  that  house  took  the  missive  up 
stairs  and  brought  the  response.  The  rival  proprietors  were  not 
on  speaking  terms,  and  the  guides  and  runners  were  constantly 
at  war. 

During  the  whole  of  our  stay  we  played  upon  their  jealousies 
to  the  best  of  our  abilities.  When  we  wanted  to  hire  carriages 
for  drives  around  the  city  or  in  its  vicinity  we  put  the  business 
in  competition  and  reduced  the  rates  nearly  one-half.  We  thus 
obtained  carriages  for  twelve  francs  where  twenty  was  the  regu- 
lar price,  and  for  fifteen  francs  where  they  ordinarily  demanded 
twenty-five.     No  matter  what  we  wanted,  we  always  said, 

"  We  will  see  what  our  friends  at  the  other  house  can  do." 

That  always  brought  them  to  terms. 

It  is  not  often  that  a  traveller  profits  by  the  quarrels  of  inn- 
keepers. These  gentry  are  much  more  likely  to  resemble  in 
their  discords,  the  operations  of  the  two  sides  of  a  pair  of  shears, 
— they  cut  not  themselves  but  what's  between  them. 


CH  APTE  R     XIV. 

ATHENS  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN— SIGHTS  AND   SCENES  IN  THE 
GRECIAN  CAPITAL. 

First  Impressions  of  Athens— Opinion  of  the  "  Doubter"—"  Not  Worth  Damming" 
— The  Oldest  Inhabitant  of  Athens— Celebrated  Ruins— Reminiscences  of  Greek 
Grammar — A  "Big  Injun"  on  Greek— Drinking  beer  on  sacred  so  1— A  toper- 
graphical  survey— The  Acropolis-What  is  it  ?— The  Temple  of  Jupiter  Olympus- 
Seven  Hundred  years  in  Building — A  young  Englishman  in  a  scrape— Sunset  from 
the  Acropolis — Byron's  glorious   lines— The   Parthenon  and  its  su-roundings— 

Foundations  of  the  Ancient  Citadel — Excavations  of  antiquarians — Greek  Art 

An  important  discovery — The  line  of  beauty. 

THE  first  view  of  Athens  gives  a  stranger  a  favorable  impres- 
sion ;  the  city  stands  in  a  plain,  at  the  foot  of  Mount  Lyca- 
bettus  and  the  Acropolis,  and  is  between  the  river  Cephissus  on 
one  side  and  the  Elissus  on  the  other. 

Considered  as  rivers  these  streams  are  of  very  little  conse- 
quence and  hardly  worth  mentioning,  but  regarded  as  brooks 
they  are  entitled  to  some  respect.  The  Greeks  call  them  rivers 
and  I  suppose  they  ought  to  know  what  they  are  about. 

It  is  with  some  hesitation  I  venture  to  suggest  that  if  the  Elis- 
sus and  Cephissus  were  united,  it  would  take  about  sixteen  mil- 
lion of  these  combined  streams  to  equal  the  Mississippi.  The 
"  Doubter"  said  he  didn't  believe  that  a  man  in  search  of  a  mill- 
site  would  consider  either  of  th^sc  Athenian  torrents  worth  dam- 
ming. 

The  oldest  inhabitant  of  Athens  is  dead,  and  his  death  occur- 
red according  to  the  historians,  about  thirty-four  hundred  years 
ago,  or  to  be  particular  about  dates,  in   1643   before  the  Chris- 

(197) 


198  OLD    NAMES    FOR   NEW    STREETS. 

tian  Era.     A  gentleman  named  Cecrops  came  there  from  Egypt 
and  founded  a  city  which  he  called  Cecropia. 
■   I  enquired  about  Cecrops  and  learned,  much  to  my  regret,  that 
he  is  no  longer  alive.     Had  he  been  in  Athens  I  would  have 
paid  him  my  respects. 

I  will  not  attempt  to  write  the  history  of  Athens,  for  a  variety 
of  reasons,  any  one  of  which  would  be  sufificient,  and  as  two  or 
three  at  least  will  occur  to  every  reader,  I  refrain  from  mention- 
ing them. 

At  present  the  city  has  something  less  than  fifty  thousand  in- 
habitants, and  possesses  very  little  of  the  grandeur  for  which  it 
was  once  famous. 

The  most  attractiv^e  features  about  it  are  its  ruins,  and  every 
visitor  is  much  more  interested  in  the  Acropolis  and  other  re- 
mains of  ancient  Greece  than  in  the  modern  city.  But  I  must 
admit  that  Athens  has  considerable  beauty  and  is  well  worth  a 
visit,  apart  from  the  historic  associations  that  cluster  around  it. 

There  is  a  pretty  little  palace  where  the  royal  family  resides, 
and  it  is  surrounded  by  gardens  arranged  with  considerable  taste, 
and  forming  very  agreeable  promenades.  In  the  square  in  front 
of  the  palace  a  band  plays  twice  a  week  on  pleasant  afternoons 
and  on  these  occasions  most  of  the  fashionables,  and  many  of  the 
unfashionables,  of  Athens  come  out  for  an  airing,  and  to  see  and 
be  seen.  The  balconies  of  our  rooms  overlooked  this  square,  so 
that  we  could  see  the  people  and  hear  the  music  without  the  ne- 
cessity of  walking. 

The  principal  street  in  Athens  is  named  Hermes,  and  you  are 
reminded  that  you  are  in  Greece  when  you  attempt  to  spell  out 
the  names  of  the  highways  and  by-ways.  The  characters  are  so 
nearly  identical  with  the  Ancient  Greek  that  I  found  my  school- 
day  studies  quite  convenient.  When  in  my  adolescence  I  spent 
considerable  time  over  Anthon's  Greek  Grammar,  and  over  the 
Iliad  and  Odyssey  of  a  party  by  the  Jiame  of  Homer,  I  used  to 
ask,  and  sometimes  with  a  good  (Jeal  of  petulance : 

"  What  is  the  use  of  wasting  time  over  this  stuff  when  I  might 
be  skating  or  playing  leap-frog  V 

And  my  good-natured  old  teacher  would  explain  that  it  was  the 
most  useful  employment  for  a  young  man  that  could  be  advised, 
and  I  would  one  day  see  the  advantage  of  it,  and  rejoice  that  I 


A    LESSON    IN    GREEK. 


199 


had  made  my  head  ache  over  Alpha  and  Omega.  I  wanted  to 
study  French  and  German  but  he  always  told  me  that  the  mod- 
ern languages  were  abominations,  the  works  of  a  party  of  brim- 


stony  memory,  and  I  should  bring  ruin  and  disgrace  upon  my- 
self if  I  had  anything  to  do  with  them.  So  I  shunned  those 
paths  of  wickedness  until  I  reached  the  years  of — misunderstand- 
ings, and  devoted  my  young  and  happy  days  to  Greek  and  Latin. 


200         THE  JUDGE  IN  A  SENTIMENTAL  MOOD. 

For  a  long  time  I  have  had  Httle  to  do  with  those  dead  lan- 
guages, and  I  couldn't  conjugate  a  Greek  or  Latin  verb  to-day,  if 
my  life  depended  on  the  result.  But  I  see  it  all  now,  and  my 
three  or  four  years  of  Greek  were  of  immense  advantage  to  me 
when  I  was  in  Athens. 

It  never  took  me  more  than  a  minute  to  spell  out  the  name  of 
a  street ;  the  names  were  painted  in  Greek  letters,  and  I  remem- 
bered the  shape  of  them. 

When  the  Judge  and  I  were  hunting  for  a  beer  shop  I  was 
the  Big  Injun  of  the  party.  The  Judge  did  not  know  any  more 
about  Greek,  than  a  cow  does  about  quadratic  equations,  and  he 
was  obliged  to  ask  me  to  tell  him  the  names  of  the  streets. 
And  the  way  I  rattled  off  Hermes,  Eolus,  Minerva,  Adrian,  and 
the  like,  would  have  done  credit  to  a  deaf  and  dumb  asylum. 
Didn't  I  rejoice  that  I  was  familiar  with  Greek,  and  able  to  save 
the  trouble  of  asking  somebody  to  direct  us  to  our  destination  ? 

The  Judge  appreciated  the  situation  and  said,  "What  a  splen- 
did thing  it  is  to  know  something  !  If  I  should  ever  be  a 
husband,  and  a  father,  and  the  results  of  my  paternity  should  be 
boys,  I  would  have  them  study  Greek.  They  may  come  to 
Athens  some  time  and  find  it  convenient  in  going  about  the 
streets.  A  good  map  of  the  city  would  cost  fifty  cents,  and  they 
will  be  able  to  save  all  that  expenditure." 

There  were  tears  in  his  eyes  as  he  spoke,  for  we  were  in  front 
of  the  beer-shop  and  found  it  closed. 

Happily  there  was  another  establishment  for  the  sale  of  malt 
liquors,  and  as  it  was  only  two  blocks  away,  I  was  able  to  get 
my  friend  where  he  could  rest  and  be  comfortable. 

"  Alas  for  the  decline  of  Greece,"  he  muttered  as  he  brought 
the  glass  to  his  lips,  and  drew  a  long  breath  with  beer  in  it ; 
"Once  she  had  her  Homer,  her  Demosthenes,  her  Lycurgus, 
her  Epaminondas  ;  on  yonder  hill  St.  Paul  preached  to  the 
Athenians  his  famous  discourse  on  the  unknown  God ;  here 
Socrates  taught  his  philosophy ;  fromArgos  the  mighty  Agamem- 
non and  his  company  of  warriors  sailed  for  the  siege  of  Troy,  and 
hung  like  a  bull-dog  to  a  coat-tail  for  ten  long  and  weary  years  ; 
here  Sculpture  became  the  study  of   a  whole  people,    and  Art 


A    TOPER-GRAPHICAL    SURVEY. 


20 1 


reached  the  highest  point  of  development  known  to  ancient 
times  ;  here  were  fought  those  battles  between  Greeks  and  Per- 
sians, that  will  live  and  ring  through  all  history,  and  on  yonder 
bay  that  shines  so  placidly  in  the  afternoon  sun,  the  fleet  of 
Xerxes  was  destroyed. 

"  And  what  have  we  to-day  } 

"The  monuments  of  Ancient  Greece  are  in  ruins  ;  the  city  has 
has   dwindled  so    that 

it  would    hardly   form       i    ,  j  It/// 

a    constituency   for   a  ' 

custom-house  col- 
lector ;  and  the  beer, 
just  taste  it;  the  beer 
is  entirely  unfit  to 
drink." 

The  beer  was  very 
bad,  and  it  turned  out 
that  the  bottle  had 
been  opened  the  day 
before  for  a  customer, 
who  concluded  to  take 
a  cigar  instead.  We 
had  another  bottle  with 
better  success,  but  on 
the  whole  were  not  in- 
clined to  praise  the 
Athenian  beverage. 
The  Judge  made  a 
/<?/£Tgraphical  survey 
of  the  entire  city  and 
visited  every  brasserie,  -but  with  no  better  success.  Everywhere 
the  drinks  were  atrocious,  and  he  ascribed  the  decayed  con- 
dition of  the  country  to  the  bad  quality  of  the  national  bev- 
erage. 

"  Somebody  has  said,"  he  remarked,  when  telling  me  of  the 
result  of  his  inspection, "  somebody  has  said,  'let  me  make  the  bal- 
lads of  a  nation  and  I  care  not  who  makes  the  laws.' 

"  Now  I  will  back  up  the  correctness  of  that  man's   theory, 


THE   DECLINE  OF  GREECE. 


202  RUINS  OF  A  GREAT  TEMPLE. 

provided  you  substitute  beer  for  ballads.  What  can  you  expect 
of  a  nation  with  such  beer  as  this  ? " 

The  great  object  of  attraction  at  Athens  is  the  Acropolis,  and 
as  soon  as  we  had  lunched  after  our  arrival  at  the  hotels,  we  set 
out  for  that  interesting  hill. 

From  the  square  where  the  palace  and  principal  hotels  are 
situated,  it  is  a  walk  of  half  a  mile  or  more  to  the  Acropolis. 

A  portion  of  the  way  is  through  the  new  quarter  of  the  city 
and  along  a  boulevard  of  recent  construction  ;  as  we  approach 
the  hill  we  find  ourselves  among  some  older  buildings,  and 
scattered  in  these  are  some  of  the  tombs  and  monuments  that 
have  been  fortunately  preserved.  We  face  the  arch  of  Adrian, 
which  is  in  a  tolerable  state  of  preservation,  and  halt  at  the 
temple  of  Jupiter  Olympus,  the  most  extensive  of  all  the  temples 
of  ancient  Athens.  History  tells  us  that  it  was  begun  five  hun- 
dred and  thirty  years  before  the  Christian  era,  and  that  various 
emperors  and  kings  labored  upon  it.  The  work  was  not  com- 
pleted until  nearly  seven  hundred  years  after  the  first  stone  of 
the  foundation  was  laid.  It  was  originally  three  hundred  and 
thirty  feet  long,  by  about  half  as  many  wdde,  and  contained  one 
hundred  and  twenty  marble  columns,  each  nearly  seven  feet  in 
diameter  and  sixty  feet  high  ! 

Only  sixteen  of  these  columns  remain  ;  one  of  them  lies  where 
it  was  thrown  by  an  earthquake  in  1852,  and  enables  a  visitor  to 
see  with  what  excellence  the  Greek  architects  performed  their 
work.  •  On  thirteen  of  the  columns  the  architrave  remains  in 
position  and  one  is  puzzled  to  know  how  those  immense  masses 
of  stone  were  hoisted  into  place. 

The  effect  of  these  ruins  is  grand,  partly  on  account  of  the 
vastness  of  the  columns,  and  partly  by  reason  of  their  isolated 
position,  in  a  large  open  space,  where  there  are  no  surroundings 
of  other  structures  to  detract  from  the  general  effect.  A  few 
soldiers  are  stationed  there  to  prevent  vandalism  on  the  part  of 
strangers,  and  an  enterprising  Greek  has  established  a  miserable 
cafe,  among  the  columns.  To  what  base  uses  may  w-e  come  at 
last! 

Continuing  our  journey  toward  the  Acropolis  we  passed  the 
ruins  of  the  Theatre  of  Bacchus  ;  we  reserved  it  for  another  day. 


THE    THEATRE    OF    BACCHUS.  20$ 

but  I  may  as  well  dispose  of  it  here.  According  to  some  author- 
ities it  could  contain  thirty  thousand  spectators,  and  for  a  long 
time  it  was  the  scene  of  the  representations  of  the  principal 
works  of  Eschylus,  Sophocles,  Euripides,  and  other  famous 
writers  of  Greek  drama.  The  stage  and  auditorium  were  built 
of  marble  and  limestone,  and  decorated  in  the  highest  style  of 
magnificence  known  to  that  period.  The  width  of  the  stage  was 
about  eighty  feet,  and  the  diameter  of  the  theatre  on  the  upper 
rows  of  seats  was  nearly  five  hundred  feet.  There  were  twenty- 
five  tiers  of  seats,  and  there  were  twelve  passage-ways  leading 
through  them,  so  that  an  audience  could  be  quickly  assembled  or 
as  quickly  dispersed.  Till  within  a  few  years  the  whole  theatre 
was  covered  with  rubbish  ;  excavations  have  been  carried  on  at 
the  expense  of  the  King  of  Prussia  and  other  crowned  heads, 
and  latterly  by  the  Archaeological  Society  of  Athens,  so  that  the 
most  of  this  ancient  temple  of  the  drama  has  been  exposed  to 
view. 

Statues  and  fragments  lie  around  in  great  profusion.  In  the 
centre  of  the  stage  there  is  a  small  hut — the  domicile  of  an  old 
soldier  who  has  charge  of  the  ruins,  and  presents  an  open  hand 
for  whatever  "backsheesh"  the  visitor  chooses  to  give  him.  The 
seats  in  the  foremost  range  were  beautifully  sculptured  in  marble, 
and  were  evidently  very  comfortable  places  to  occupy  during  the 
performance.  There  are  fifty  of  these  seats,  and  the  names  en- 
graved on  them  show  that  they  belonged  to  the  priests  and  other 
high  dignitaries  of  Athens. 

The  priest  of  Bacchus  had  the  post  of  honor  in  the  centre ; 
his  seat  is  larger  and  more  elaborately  sculptured  than  the  rest 
and  is  raised  a  few  inches  higher.  Behind  this  row  there  are 
"three  rows  which  were  occupied  by  the  magistrates  and  similar 
dignitaries,  and  behind  these  were  the  seats  of  the  general 
public. 

^  Between  the  auditorium  and  the  stage  there  is  an  open  space 
which  was  occupied  by  the  orchestra.  Not  a  single  musician 
was  there  at  the  time  of  our  visit,  and  not  an  actor  or  danseuse 
could  be  found  anywhere  about  the  place.  All !  all !  were  gone, 
and  in  their  place  a  single  Greek,  ancient  but  modern,  soliciting 
something  to  keep  him  from  starving. 


204 


AN   ACT    OF   VANDALISM. 


The  theatre  was  on  the  southeastern  slope  of  the  Acropolis  ; 
the  stage  was  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  and  the  auditorium  extended 
up  the  slope.  From  here  a  foot  path  extends  along  the  base  of 
the  hill,  and  rises  pretty  steeply  in  places  till  it  reaches  a  gate 

by  the  side  of  a  modern 
dwelling  occupied  by  the 
custodians  of  the  ruins. 
The  gate  is  strong  and 
high,  and  thelock  is  suffi- 
ciently powerful  to  defy 
the  assaults  of  anybody 
who  has  not  been  edu- 
cated either  as  a  lock- 
smith or  burglar.  We 
passed  under  the  eye  of 
a  custodian  as  we  en- 
tered, and  he  followed  us 
at  a  respectful  distance 
to  see  that  we  did  no  dam- 
agce.  The  instructions 
to  these  custodians  are 
the  most  sensible  I  have 
known  anywhere  in 
places  of  this  kind.  They 
do  not  keep  with  you  and 
cause  annoyance  by  telling  you  what  to  look  at,  and  hurrying 
you  through  faster  than  you  want  to  go.  All  that  pleasing  duty 
is  left  to  the  guide  whom  you  have  brought  from  the  hotel.  The 
government  knows  that  he  will  be  a  sufficient  nuisance  for  all 
practical  purposes,  and  consequently  the  custodians  keep  always- 
from  five  to  fifty  yards  away  from  you ;  they  let  you  wander 
where  you  please  and  do  what  you  please,  as  long  as  you  do  not 
injure  anything.  They  never  speak  to  you  unless  you  attempt 
to  play  the  vandal  ;  we  didn't  learn  by  experience  what  they 
would  do  in  that  case,  but  were  told  that  an  offender  is  likely  to 
be  severely  treated. 

A  young  Englishman,  a  few  years  ago,  in  sheer  mischief, 
broke  the  nose  from  one  of  the  finest  statues  in  the  collection  at 


GREEK  PRIEST  OF   MODERN  TIMES. 


LOOKING    FROM    THE   ACROPOLIS.  20$ 

the  Acropolis.  He  was  arrested  on  the  spot,  and  had  three 
months  in  a  Greek  prison,  in  which  he  made  up  his  mind  not  to 
do  so  any  more.  He  hasn't  gone  around  smashing  marble  noses 
since  his  release.  And,  in  addition  to  his  imprisonment,  he  had 
to  pay  a  heavy  fine,  which  was  applied  to  the  fund  for  keeping 
the  ruins  in  proper  repair. 

We  spent  the  afternoon  on  the  Acropolis,  studying  it  in  its 
general  features  and  listening  to  the  monotonous  drawl  of  our 
guide,  as  he  described  the  various  temples  and  other  structures 
whose  remains  covered  the  summit  of  the  hill.  From  the  wall 
at  the  southern  extremity  we  had  a  fine  view  of  Athens,  and 
looked  down  on  the  city,  lying  like  a  map  beneath  our  feet. 

We  lingered  on  the  Acropolis  till  the  lengthening  shadows  told 
us  the  day  was  coming  to  a  close.  We  watched  the  sun  go 
down,  and  as  the  disc  of  light  touched  the  horizon,  one  of  our 
party  repeated  the  lines  which  Byron  is  said  to  have  written  on 
this  historic  spot : 

"  Slow  sinks,  more  lovely,  ere  his  race  be  run, 
Along  Morea's  hills,  the  setting  sun  ; 
Not,  as  in  Northern  climes,  obscurely  bright, 
But  one  unclouded  blaze  of  living  light  ; 
O'er  the  hushed  deep  his  mellow  beam  he  throws. 
Gilds  the  green  wave  that  trembles  as  it  flows. 
O'er  old  Egina's  rock  and  Hydra's  I  le, 
The  god  of  Gladness  sheds  his  parting  smile  : 
O'er  his  own  regions  lingering,  loves  to  shine, 
Though  there  his  altars  are  no  more  divine. 
Descending  low,  the  shadows,  lingering,  kiss 
Thy  glorious  gulf,  unconquered  Salamis  ! 
Their  azure  arches  through  the  long  expanse. 
More  deeply  purpled,  meet  his  mellowing  glance, 
And  tenderest  tints  along  their  summits  driven, 
Mark  his  gay  course  and  own  the  hues  of  heaven. 
Till,  darkly  shaded  by  the  land  and  deep. 
Behind  his  Delphian  rock,  he  sinks  to  sleep." 

The  Acropolis  cannot  be  seen  satisfactorily  in  a  single  visit ; 
two  or  three  visits  at  least  are  necessary,  and  an  entire  week  can 
be  spent  there  profitably.  Our  first  day  was  intended  only  as  an 
outline  and  preliminary  inspection  ;  next  morning  we  went  to 
work  upon  the  matter  in  earnest. 


2o6 


LUXCHING   AMONG    THE    RUINS. 


We  told  our  guide  we  had  no  more  use  for  him,  until  we  had 
done  with  the  Acropolis  ;  we  could  be  our  own  guides,  philoso- 
phers, and  friends. 

We  gathered  all  the  books  in  our  possession — English,  French, 
and  German — that  had  anything  to  say  about  the  Acropolis,  and 
we  borrowed  all  that  were  accessible  at  the  hotels.  Equipped 
with  these  and  a  lunch  basket  well  filled,  we  sallied  forth,  deter- 
mined to  "do"  the  ruins  most  thoroughly. 

We  began  at  the  beginning,  and  at  each  ruin  or  part  of  a  ruin 
that    we   visited,    one  of    us  read   aloud  while    the    others    lis- 


"doing"  the  ruins. 
tened.     It  was  slow  work,  and  we  took  turns  in  the  reading; 
we  were  three  days  at  the  Acropolis,  and  I  do  not  believe  any 
party  of   non-professional  tourists  ever  "  did "  the   place  more 
thoroughly. 

At  this  lapse  of  time  and  distance,  the  Acropolis  and  its  tem- 
ples and  monuments  stand  clear  and  distinct  before  me,  and 
there  is  no  confusion  in  the  picture.  This  is  more  than  I  can 
say  of  many  other  places  that  I  have  visited,  where  I  was  obliged 
to  limit  to  hours  and  minutes  what  should  have  consumed  entire 
and  successive  days. 

The  Acropolis  is  an  elevated  rock,  scarped  on  all  sides,  and  is 
of  an  irregular  oval  form,  about  nine  hundred  feet  long  and  four 


IN    THE   ANCIENT    CITADEL.  20/ 

hundred  feet  across  its  greatest  width.     It  is  comparatively  level  on 
the  summit,  and  its  height  above  the  sea  is  about  five  hundred 

feet. 

The  first  walls  erected  there  were  for  purposes  of  fortification, 
and  are  attributed  to  the  Pelasgians  ;  they  are  said  to  be  more 
than  three  thousand  years  old,  and  were  evidently  built  with 
great  care.  Portions  of  them  have  been  revealed  by  the  excava- 
tions of  M.  Beule,  and  are  still  visible  ;  the  stones  are  matched 
only  on  their  exterior  surface  and  that  rather  roughly  ;  they  con- 
sist of  the  rock  of  the  Acropolis,  and  not  like  the  stones  in  the 
Greek  walls,  of  material  brought  from  a  distance. 

Not  much  of  the  Pelasgian  wall  remains,  as  it  was  cut  away  in 
several  places  to  make  room  for  the  Greek  foundations  of  the 
Propyls.  Near  this  wall  there  was  a  Greek  pavement  in  front 
of  the  Temple  of  Victory.  In  1853  this  pavement  was  removed, 
and  revealed  the  rock  of  the  Acropolis,  bearing  the  traces  of 
chariot  wheels  which  rolled  there  more  than  thirty  centuries  ago. 
The  ancient  road  is  clearly  defined,  and  at  its  edges  one  can  see 
the  marks  of  the  rude  implements  that  were  employed  in  smooth- 
ing it. 

Walls  and  fragments  of  walls,  whose  erection  embraced  periods 
hundreds  of  years  apart,  appear  here  and  there.  The  noblest 
and  grandest  are  those  of  the  Greeks,  and  they  are  so  numerous 
that  the  plainest  description  of  them  would  be  tedious. 

The  grand  staircases  which  look  toward  the  sea  are  sufficiently 
intact  to  show  their  extent,  though  they  are  much  injured  by 
modern  walls  erected  for  military  purposes — some  by  the  Vene- 
tians, some  by  the  Turks,  and  some  by  the  Greeks,  who  were  be- 
sieged there  in  1822,  during  the  war  for  independence.  A  few 
only  of  the  columns  of  the  Propylae  remain ;  they  have  excited 
the  admiration  of  visitors  through  all  ages  since  their  erection, 
twenty-three  hundred  years  ago.  They  were  preserved  almost 
intact  down  to  the  14th  century,  when  portions  of  them  were  re- 
moved for  the  construction  of  a  fortress. 

The  Turks  converted  the  Propylae  into  a  powder  magazine 
and  a  depot  of  arms,  and  one  day  the  powder  blew  up  and 
smashed  things  generally.  But  enough  remains  to  show  the  an- 
cient grandeur  of  this  portico  of  the  Parthenon. 


208  THE    PARTHENON    AND    ITS  ART-TREASURES. 

The  Acropolis  contained  several  temples,  and  not,  as  many 
persons  suppose,  only  that  world-renowned  structure,  the  Par- 
thenon. But  the  Parthenon  overtops  them  all,  and  that  in  a 
double  sense,  as  it  stands  on  the  highest  part  of  the  rocky  plateau. 
The  Parthenon  was  the  work  of  Phidias,  or  was  constructed  un- 
der his  direction,  and  is  generally  considered  the  finest  of  the 
Greek  temples.  Though  greatly  ruined  now,  it  remained  almost 
intact  until  1687,  when  it  was  occupied  by  the  Turks,  who  estab- 
lished a  powder  magazine  in  its  centre.  The  Venetians  were 
besieging  them,  and  a  shell  from  a  Venetian  gun  caused  an  ex- 
plosion that  blew  down  a  large  part  of  the  building  and  left  the 
walls  and  columns  in  very  nearly  the  condition  in  which  we  find 
them. 

Morosini,  the  Venetian  conqueror,  then  entered  the  place  ;  he 
did  not  undertake  any  more  explosions,  but  he  tore  down  and 
carried  away  many  of  the  statues  and  decorations. 

Subsequent  conquerors  and  antiquarians  carried  away  many 
other  statues  and  reliefs,  so  that  the  most  of  the  fine  sculpture  of 
the  Parthenon  existing  to-day  must  be  sought  in  the  museums  of 
England  and  France.  The  British  Museum  contains  the  British 
lion's  share. 

The  act  of  Lord  Elgin  in  carrying  away  two  ship  loads  of  the 
treasures  of  the  Parthenon  has  been  severely  criticised  Our 
party  had  a  lively  discussion  on  the  subject,  and  the  question  was 
argued  with  a  great  deal  of  vehemence. 

At  the  time  the  sculptures  were  removed,  Greece  was  in  a 
very  unsettled  condition.  The  Parthenon  had  been  greatly  in- 
jured during  the  wars  of  the  preceding  two  hundred  years,  and 
there  was  no  guarantee  of  permanent  peace.  The  Turks  were 
quite  likely  to  come  again,  and  as  for  that  matter  there  may  be  a 
Greco-Turkish  war  at  any  time,  that  may  lead  to  another  Moslem 
occupation  of  Athens  with  its  attendant  results. 

In  the  British  Museum,  the  art-treasures  of  the  Parthenon  are 
far  safer  than  they  would  be  in  Athens,  and  for  purposes  of  art- 
study  they  are  ajccessible  to  thousands  of  persons,  when  they 
wouldn't  be  seen  by  dozens  if  in  the  Greek  capital.  For  those 
artists  who  manage  to  visit  Athens  there  is  quite  enough  remain- 
ing on  the  Acropolis,  and  in  and  around  the  city,  to  occupy  the 


DIGGING    UP    STATUES.  2O9 

whole  of  a  busy  lifetime  of  study,  even  if  it  run  beyond  three- 
score and  ten  years  ;  and  I  further  conclude  that  the  modern 
Greeks,  down  to  the  time  of  Lord  Elgin's  razzia,  had  forfeited  all 
claim  to  the  Parthenon  by  their  utter  neglect  of  it.  In  the  in- 
terest of  art,  any  person  who  would  undertake  the  preservation 
of  the  sculptures  was  to  be  regarded  as  a  benefactor  of  the  civil- 
ized world. 

I  have  said  my  say,  and  feel  better. 

Lord  Elgin  has  been  called  all  manner  of  hard  names  by  a 
great  many  writers  from  Byron  downwards,  but  I  think  he  did 
right.  If  his  relatives  and  friends  wish  to  send  me  any  testi- 
monial for  coming  to  his  defence,  they  can  remit  it,  post  and  duty 
paid,  and  I  will  acknowledge  by  return  mail. 

I  wish  to  say  on  behalf  of  the  present  government  in  Greece, 
that  it  manifests  a  great  interest  in  preserving  the  works  of  art 
that  remain.  And  it  is  constantly  making  researches  to  the  ex- 
tent of  its  financial  ability,  and  every  year  new  treasures  are  dis- 
covered, and  fresh  light  is  thrown  upon  the  art  development  of 
Ancient  Greece. 

Some  of  the  excavations  have  been  made  at  the  personal  ex- 
pense of  the  young  King,'  and  altogether  no  one  can  complain 
that  art  matters  are  neglected  in  Athens  at  the  present  time. 

An  excellent  museum  has  been  formed  at  Athens,  and  it  is  un- 
der efficient  and  careful  management.  Students  are  flocking  to 
the  city  from  all  parts  of  Europe,  and  the  numbers  bid  fair  to  in- 
crease from  year  to  year. 

Enough  has  been  printed  on  Greek  art  to  satisfy  the  most 
exacting  ;  there  is  little  left  to  say.  The  fact  that  I  have  never 
studied  the  subject  does  not  at  all  disqualify  me  from  writing  about 
it,  if  I  were  to  follow  the  standard  set  up  by  some  who  have  gone 
before  me.  Long  essays  have  appeared  from  the  pens  of  men 
who  could  hardly  tell  the  difference  between  a  pediment,  and  a 
cornice,  or  explain  why  a  segment  is  not  an  angle  or  an  angle  a 
segment.  It  may  be  that  I  am  over-scrupulous,  but  I  have  al- 
ways been  reluctant  to  write  on  any  topic  about  which  I  was  not 
properly  informed. 

In  our  visit  to  the  Parthenon  and  in  our  examination  of  books 
relating  to  it  we  found  something  which  greatly  interested  us  ; 


210  A    STRANGE    DISCOVERY. 

as  it  was  in  a  French  book,  and  as  none  of  us  had  ever  seen  it  in 
an  EngHsh  one  I  have  thought  well  to  say  something  about  it. 

For  thousands  of  years  the  Greek  temples  have  been  admired 
for  the  beauty  and  harmony  of  their  lines,  and  in  modern  times 
several  attempts  have  been  made  to  copy  them.  But  the  mod- 
ern architects  have  invariably  found  that  their  productions  had  an 
appearance  of  rigidity  and  lacked  the  softness  and  beauty  of  the 
antique.     What  could  be  the  reason  ? 

The  secret  was  not  discovered  until  less  than  forty  years  ago. 
It  had  been  lost  to  the  world  through  all  the  centuries  that 
have  elapsed  since  the  temples  of  Greece  began  to  crumble  and 
decay. 

In  1837  M.  Pennethorne,  on  studying  the  Parthenon,  made 
the  first  observation  that  led  to  the  revelation  of  the  secret ;  and 
it  was  afterward  verified  by  several  architects,  among  whom  were 
Hofer,  Schaubert,  Paccard,  and  Penrose.  The  last-named  gen- 
tleman has  treated  the  subject  in  an  excellent  work  {Prmcipes  de 
r architecture  Athenienne)  published  in  185 1,  and  it  has  also  been 
examined  by  M.  Burnouf  in  an  article  in  tJie  Revjie  des  Deux 
Mondes.  The  theories  of  the  investigators  were  at  first  received 
with  derision,  but  repeated  measurement  not  only  of  the  Parthe- 
non, but  of  other  Greek  temples,  have  settled  the  matter  beyond 
a  doubt. 

It  has  been  found  that  the  Greek  architects  gave  curves  and 
inclinations  to  the  principal  lines  which  modern  architects  have 
been  accustomed  to  make  perfectly  straight. 

Measurements  of  the  Parthenon  and  other  temples  show  that 
these  curves  were  both  horizontal  and  perpendicular,  and  in  every 
investigation  they  have  been  found  mathematically  exact. 

"  To  the  eye  as  to  science,"  says  M.  Burnouf,  "  the  stability  of 
the  body  increases  with  the  extent  of  the  base.  The  interior 
walls  of  the  cella  (or  sanctwn)  of  the  Parthenon  were  slightly  in- 
clined towards  each  other  ;  the  columns  of  the  peristyle  were  like- 
wise inclined  inward,  and  the  same  was  the  case  with  the  columns 
at  the  angles.  The  whole  structure  thus  received  the  form  of  a 
truncated  pyramid  which  gave  an  appearance  of  great  solidity. 

The  inclinations  thus  mentioned  were  vertical.  A  slight  curve 
was  given  horizontally  to  the  floor  or  platform  on  which  the  tem- 


THE    LINE    OF    BEAUTY.  211 

pie  Stands,  and  it  is  found  to  extend  outward  in  all  directions 
from  the  point  which  indicates  the  centre. 

All  parts  of  the  temple  are  made  to  correspond  to  this  curve 
which  is  very  slight,  only  a  few  half  inches  in  a  distance  of  a  hun- 
dred feet — but  at  the  same  time  sufficient  to  give  a  most  harmo- 
nious and  pleasing  effect. 

The  earliest  Greek  temples  do  not  have  these  curves,  but  they 
are  found  in  all  the  later  ones,  so  that  the  time  of  their  introduc- 
tion can  be  determined  with  reasonable  accuracy. 

It  is  supposed  that  the  Greek  artists  arrived  at  the  use  of  these 
cur\'^es  by  a  careful  study  of  nature.  The  straight  line  is  a  geo- 
metric abstraction  which  is  never  found  in  nature.  The  horizon 
is  curved  in  consequence  of  the  spherical  form  of  the  earth  ;  the 
sea,  a  mountain  range,  or  a  plain,  assumes  a  curve  when  we  look 
at  it  from  a  distance,  and  a  long  line  of  coast  will  appear  arched 
like  a  bow  when  we  approach  it. 

Undoubtedly  the  Greeks  gave  these  horizontal  curves  to  the 
bases  and  super-structures  of  their  temples  in  an  effort  to  imitate 
nature.  Hogarth  in  the  last  century  laid  down  the  law  that  the 
curve  was  the  line  of  beauty  ;  he  was  not  aware  that  the  princi- 
ple had  been  discovered  ages  and  ages  ago  by  the  Greeks. 

For  fear  that  I  have  not  made  my  explanation  clear  enough 
to  everyone  let  me  illustrate  : 

We  all  know  the  earth  is  round — I  demonstrated  that  to  my 
own  satisfaction  by  travelling  steadily  west  until  I  reached  home 
— and  so  many  persons  have  done  likewise  since  the  days  of  Sir 
Francis  Drake,  the  first  circumnavigator,  that  the  rotundity  of 
the  earth  is  everywhere  accepted  and  understood  Now  if  the 
whole  earth  is  round,  it  follows  naturally  that  any  part  of  it  is 
curved  in  proportion  to  its  extent. 

Is  there  a  pond  in  your  neighborhood  a  mile  in  diameter  ? 

"  Yes." 

Next  winter  when  it  is  frozen  over,  go  to  that  pond  and  stretch 
a  twine  from  side  to  side.  If  you  con/d  stretch  that  line  without 
any  "  sag"  you  would  find  that  it  would  touch  the  ice  in  the  cen- 
tre and  be  four  inches  above  it  at  each  end. 

Or  go  there  some  night  in  the  summer  and  place  a  bright  light 
at  the  water's  edge  on  one  side  of  the  pond.  Then  go  to  the 
14 


212 


HINTS    TO   ARCHITECTS. 


Other  side,  get  into  the  water  till  your  eye  is  just  above  the  sur- 
face and  endeavor  to  see  the  light.  You  don't  see  it — because 
the  rotundity  of  the  earth  prevents. 

Now  if  you  are  building  a  church  or  a  large  hall,  apply  this 
principle  of  the  curvature  of  the  earth.  Instead  of  making  your 
floor  perfectly  flat  make  it  swell  up  a  little  in  the  centre  and  sweep 
from  this  centre  outward,  toward  the  corners  and  sides.  Then 
make  your  roof,  pillars,  and  everything  else  in  the  place,  and  also 
the  broad  steps  on  the  outside,  curve  in  the  same  way  and  you 
will  be  imitating  the  Greek  artists  of  the  time  of  Pericles  and 
Phidias.  They  may  be  said  to  have  had  level  heads,  those 
Greeks,  when  they  abandoned  the  level  and  adopted  the  curve. 

Enough  of  this. 


CHAPTER    XV. 

ROUND  ABOUT  ATHENS.— THE  COUNTRY  OF  THE  BRIGANDS. 

Mars'  Hill,  the  place  where  St.  Paul  Preached  on  the  Unknown  God — The  Prison 
of  Socrates— The  Country  of  the  Brigands— Escorted  by  Greek  Soldiers— Captures 
by  the  Brigands — How  they  treat  Captives — Extorting  Ransoms — Buying  Coins 
and  Relics — Swindling  Travellers — Among  the  Ruins  —  Strange  Contrasts — 
"Chaffing"  the  Guide — Position  of  the  Persian  and  Grecian  Hosts — Xerxes' 
Throne — "The  King  Sate  on  the  Rocky  Brow  " — Making  the  Ascent  by  Proxy — 
•'  I  no  go  ze  Mountain  " — The  Battle  of  Marathon — A  Survivor  of  the  Battle — 
How  the  Victory  was  Won. 

WE  visited  all  the  places  of  historic  interest  in  Athens,  in- 
cluding the  hill  where  St  Paul  is  said  to  have  preached 
his  sermon  on  the  unknown  God. 

The  place  is  admirably  adapted  for  the  delivery  of  an  oration, 
and  it  is  no  wonder  that  it  was  a  favorite  one  with  the  Athenians 
on  the  occasion  of  any  public  demonstration.  Indications  of  its 
ancient  uses  are  still  visible.  There  is  a  stairway  of  sixteen 
steps  hewn  in  the  solid  rock  leading  to  a  platform  where  there 
are  three  rectangular  seats  placed  in  a  half  circle,  and  looking 
toward  the  South. 

On  each  side  to  the  East  and  West,  there  is  an  elevated  block 
of  stone  ;  these  blocks  are  supposed  to  be  the  seats  of  accuser 
and  accused,  according  to  the  description  of  Pausanias  and  oth- 
ers. The  courts  of  justice  were  held  here,  with  powers  that 
varied  from  time  to  time,  according  to  the  decrees  of  the  ruler. 

It  was  here  that  Demosthenes  was  condemned  to  death,  and 
not  far  away  is  the  place  where  Socrates  is  said  to  have  died. 

To  reach  the  prison  of  Socrates  we  passed  through  a  ploughed 
field  to  the  perpendicular  side  of  a  hill,  where  a  cavity  was  hewn 
in  the  solid  rock.     There  was  nothing  of  interest  in  the  prison  ; 

(213) 


214  THE    PRISON    OF    SOCRATES. 

nothing  but  four  stone  walls  and  a  low  roof,  with  a  floor  that 
would  have  been  more  presentable  had  it  been  swept  and  washed. 
The  historians  say  that  the  authenticity  of  the  prison  is  extremely 
doubtful  and  rests  on  very  slight  foundation. 

We  made  an  excursion  to  Eleusis,  a  pleasant  ride  of  little 
more  than  two  hours,  when  we  informed  our  hotel-keeper  of  our 
intentions,  Boniface  shrugged  his  shoulders,  smiled,  shook  his 
head,  and  uttered  the  magic  word  "  brigands." 

"  What  do  you  mean  .''"  I  asked. 

"  You  must  get  an  escort,"  he  replied  ;  "  an  escort  of  soldiers  to 
protect  you,  and  you  must  send  your  application  to  the  chief  of 
police  as  soon  as  possible." 

"  But  suppose  we  don't  want  an  escort,  and  are  willing  to  take 
the  risk  ourselves  ?" 

"  That  would  not  be  permitted,"  was  his  prompt  response. 
"  The  government  was  censured  so  much  in  the  Takos  affair 
that  it  will  not  allow  anybody  to  go  without  an  escort.  They 
are  determined  to  be  on  the  safe  side,  and  if  you  venture  out 
without  an  escort,  you  will  be  liable  to  imprisonment  for  violating 
the  regulations." 

He  went  on  to  explain  that  the  escort  would  cost  us  nothing  ; 
that  it  would  consist  of  regular  soldiers,  mounted  and  armed  with 
carbines  and  pistols,  and  that  we  would  be  kept  all  the  time,  under 
the  strictest  surveillance.  We  would  not  have  a  large  guard — 
from  six  to  ten  soldiers,  commanded  by  a  sergeant,  and  quite 
possibly  we  could  get  a  sons-officier  who  could  speak  French. 
The  latter  would  not  be  absolutely  necessary,  as  we  would  ,be 
obliged  to  employ  a  guide  or  dragoman,  who  would  speak,  or 
would  claim  to  speak,  all  the  modern  languages,  in  addition  to 
that  of  the  country. 

We  sent  our  application  to  the  police  headquarters,  stating 
where  we  wished  to  go,  and  how  long  we  expected  to  be  absent, 
and  were  informed  that  the  escort  would  meet  us  at  a  little  vil- 
lage a  couple  of  miles  outside  of  Athens. 

In  order  not  to  attract  too  much  attention  and  cause  needless 
comment,  they  always  arrange  that  the  escort  shall  be  taken  up 
in  this  way.  Consequently,  our  expectation  that  we  should- ride 
through  the  streets  in  grand  style  was  ruthlessly  disappointed. 


UNDER    ESCORT.  215 

We  left  our  hotel  in  a  very  modest  way,  and  attracted  neither  at- 
tention nor  admiration  as  we  rode  along 

We  found  our  escort  waiting  for  us  and  solacing  themselves 
with  Greek  wine  at  a  wretched  brasserie  in  the  edge  of  the  vil- 
lage. The  guide  suggested  that  we  should  try  the  wine,  and 
take  a  few  bottles  of  it  along  for  the  general  benefit  of  the  party. 
We  acceded  to  his  proposal,  and  it  very  naturally  happened  that, 
in  paying  the  bill,  the  score  made  by  the  escort  was  included. 
We  did  not  demur,  as  we  wanted  to  be  on  good  terms  with  our 
guards,  and  as  the  wine  of  the  country  was  very  cheap  and  very 
bad,  we  gave  orders  that  the  escort  should  be  kept  filled  up  to 
the  chin,  and  a  little  higher  if  possible. 

During  the  whole  time  they  were  with  us,  the  guard  kept  a 
careful  watch  over  their  charges  ;  they  divided  up  into  advance, 
rear,  and  center,  the  advance  keeping  about  two  hundred  yards 
ahead  of  the  main  body,  and  the  rear  about  half  of  that  distance 
behind  us.  There  were  seven  soldiers  and  a  sergeant,  so  that  when 
the  advance  and  rear  of  two  men  each  were  in  their  proper  places, 
there  were  only  four  to  form  the  centre.  No  elaborate  military 
evolutions  were  attempted,  if  I  except  a  little  "cavorting"  on  the 
part  of  the  sergeant's  horse,  which  resulted  twice  in  unseating 
that  hero,  and  throwing  him  headlong  into  the  sand  to  the  detri- 
ment of  his  uniform  and  temper. 

We  had  expected  to  find  a  picturesque  looking  guard  in  Greek 
dress,  and  flourishing  long  lances,  such  as  we  see  in  pictures  of 
the  Phalanx  and  other  celebrated  bodies  of  troops.  We  found 
them  a  very  common  lot  of  soldiers  in  a  uniform  that  looked  very 
Frenchy,  and  I  learned  afterward  that  the  outfit  of  the  Greek 
army  was  furnished  by  French  contractors,  and  made  chiefly  in 
Paris. 

The  French  uniform  seems  to  have  invaded  the  Orient  very 
generally,  and  half  the  armies  of  the  countries  bordering  the 
Eastern  part  of  the  Mediterranean  are  now  uniformed,  with  some 
modifications,  after  the  model  of  la  grande  nation. 

Shall  I  describe  a  sanguinary  battle,  in  which  prodigies  of 
valor  were  displayed  by  our  party,  and  a  hundred  brigands  were 
compelled  to  bite  the  dust } 

A  great  deal  of  dust  was  bitten,  but  we  couldn't  help  it  ;  the 
dry  earth  was  stirred  up  by  our  horses'  hoofs,  and  for  much  of 


2l6  AMONG    THE    BRIGANDS. 

the  time  we  rode  in  dense  clouds  that  occasionally  threatened  to 
smother  us.  Our  lungs  were  filled,  and  we  ground  in  our  teeth 
more  of  the  classic  soil  of  the  land  of  Homer  and  Demosthenes 
than  we  found  to  our  liking. 

It  may  be  a  humiliation  to  say  so,  but  I  confess  that  the  most 
of  us  were  not  very  poetical  on  that  occasion,  and  voted  Greece 

a  bore. 

Candor  compels  me  to  say  that  we  had  no  encounter  with  the 
brigands,  but  returned  to  Athens  with  no  greater  sufferings  than 
the  fatigue  and  general  mussiness  consequent  upon  most  jour- 
neys of  that  length.  Two  or  three  times  we  saw  some  suspicious- 
looking  vagabonds,  and  at  sight  of  them  our  sergeant  shook  his 
head  ominously,  but  they  evinced  no  disposition  to  disturb  us. 
We  could  have  made  a  very  fair  fight,  if  attacked,  as  our  guards 
were  well  armed,  and  there  was  a  fair  supply  of  revolvers  in  our 
own  hands.  We  had  inserted  fresh  charges  before  leaving  the 
hotel,  and  were  determined  not  to  surrender  without  making 
some  resistance  at  any  rate.  Capture  at  the  hands  of  Greek 
brigands  is  no  joke,  and  would  have  disarranged  our  plans  very 
seriously. 

The  main  object  of  brigandage  is  a  financial  one  ;  the  robbers 
are  in  want  of  money  (many  of  us  are  in  the  same  fix),  and  the 
best  way  for  them  to  turn  an  honest  penny  is  to  steal  it.  When 
they  capture  travellers,  they  help  themselves  to  watches,  money, 
and  jewels,  and  anything  else  that  may  be  of  value.  But  the 
end  is  not  yet ;  they  take  the  captives  into  the  mountains,  and 
hold  them  for  something  more,  and  they  are  careful  to  squeeze 
out  as  much  as  possible.  If  the  victim  is  a  wealthy  nobleman  or 
some  other  purse-proud  aristocrat,  they  think  it  will  be  worth 
about  ^10,000  to  release  him,  but  if  he  is  some  ordinary  mortal 
with  no  influential  friends  in  Athens,  a  hundred  or  two  hundred 
pounds  will  be  sufficient.  The  foreign  residents  and  travellers 
who  happen  to  be  in  a  Greek  or  Italian  city  when  ransom  is  de- 
manded for  some  unhappy  wretch,  are  frequently  compelled  to 
raise  money  to  meet  the  demand. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  complaint  at  this,  and  much  of  it  is 
well  founded. 

"  Why  should  I,"  said  a  gentleman  to  me  in  Naples,  "  be  com- 
pelled to  pay  something  every  little  while  to  get  one  of  my  coun- 


CAPTURES   AND    RANSOMS. 


217 


trymen  out  of  the  hands  of  the  brigands  ?  I  wouldn't  venture 
where  the  scoundrels  could  catch  me,  and  I  wouldn't  allow  any 
of  my  friends  to  do  so  if  I  could  prevent  it.  But  along  comes 
some  reckless  fellow  I  never  saw,  goes  into  danger,  and  is  cap- 
tured. Then  I  am  appealed  to  on  the  ground  of  humanity  and 
all  that  sort  of  thing,  and  asked  to  help  release  him.  It  is  his 
own  fault  if  he  is  captured.  If  he  had  staid  away,  as  I  do,  he 
would  have  been  safe,  and  not  compelled  to  appeal  to  strangers. 
If  a  man  meets  with  an  accident,  I  am  willing  to  help  him,  but 
I  think  it  hard  to  be  asked  to  contribute  for  a  man  who  has  de- 
liberately and  with  eyes  open  walked  into  troulMe." 


bLMJiNL.    UP    THE    EAR   OI    A   VICTIM. 


The  brigands  generally  treat  their  prisoners  well  and  civilly. 
Sometimes  they  parole  them  not  to  attempt  to  escape,  and  allow 
them  to  do  what  they  please  ;  and  at  others  they  put  them  in 
charge  of  watchful  guards,  who  have  orders  to  shoot  them  if  they 
try  to  get  away.  If  pursued,  and  too  much  encumbered  by  their 
prisoners,  they  kill  them,  on  the  principle  that  dead  men  tell  no 
tales,  and  it  is  in  cases  of  pursuit  that  most  of  the  persons  in  the 
hands  of  the  brigands  have  lost  their  lives.  In  several  instances 
prisoners  have  been  kept  three  or  four  months  by  the  brigands, 
and  while  negotiations  were  pending  they  have  been  allowed  to 
see  their  friends,  and  even  to  visit  neighboring  cities  to  make 
personal  appeals  for  raising  the  ransom  demanded  ;  and  these 
instances  have  only  been  where  parties  of  two  or  more  were  cap- 


2l8  A   PICTURESQUE    ROUTE. 

tured.  Only  one  was  allowed  to  go  away  at  a  time,  the  rest 
being  held  as  hostages. 

Sometimes  when  the  ransom  is  not  forthcoming  in  a  reasona- 
ble time,  the  brigands  cut  off  the  ear  of  a  victim  and  send  it  to 
his  friends  with  the  intimation  that  the  other  ear  will  come  soon, 
unless  matters  are  hurried  up.  This  generally  has  the  desired 
effect. 

Brigandage  has  been  largely  reduced  in  Italy  and  Greece,  but 
it  still  exists  in  some  localities.  The  Governments  of  those 
countries  have  made  earnest  efforts  to  render  rural  travelling  safe, 
but  they  have  base  populations  to  deal  with,  and  it  will  doubtless 
be  a  long  time  before  the  business  will  be  entirely  stopped. 

Our  route  to  Eleusis,  was  over  the  ancient  sacred  way  trav- 
ersed by  the  Theorie  or  procession  which  used  to  go  from  Athens 
to  Eleusis  for  the  celebration  of  the  mysteries.  Soon  after  leav- 
ing Athens  we  enter  a  forest  of  olive  trees  ;  it  was  once  very  ex- 
tensive but  has  suffered  greatly  in  the  recent  wars  of  which  the 
country  around  Athens  has  been  in  great  part  the  theatre.  The 
road  is  very  good,  and  as  it  has  been  traversed  for  thousands  of 
years  and  is  under  the  supervision  of  goverment,  there  is  no  reason 
why  it  should  be  otherwise. 

The  chapel  of  St.  George  and  the  monastery  of  Daphni  are 
passed  on  the  route,  but  there  is  nothing  particularly  interesting 
about  them,  if  we  except  some  very  old  and  badly  preserved  mo- 
saics. All  the  time  of  the  Crusades  the  Daphni  was  a  monastery 
of  Benedictines,  and  had  some  celebrity.  It  was  one  of  the  earli- 
est Christian  centres  in  this  part  of  Greece. 

Occasionally  the  modern  road  leaves  the  ancient  one,  but  the 
traces  of  the  latter  are  distinctly  visible  where  it  was  hewn  out 
of  the  rock.  During  the  Turkish  occupation  there  was  another 
road  established  by  the  Moslems,  but  it  was  so  badly  made  that 
it  was  not  considered  worth  following  by  the  modern  engineers. 

Near  the  shores  of  the  Bay  of  Eleusis  the  road  leads  past  a 
couple  of  salt  lakes  which  are  mentioned  in  ancient  histories. 
They  are  fed  by  springs  and  drained  by  small  brooks  flowing 
into  the  bay ;  modern  and  prosaic  mills  are  on  these  brooks. 
Our  guide  explained  that  these  lakes  were  anciently  dedicated, 


A    PLACE    OF    MYSTERIES.  219 

one  to  Ceres,  and  the  other  to  Proserpine  ;  we  endeavored  to 
ascertain  if  the  mills  appertained  to  those  parties,  and  told  him 
to  go  and  ask  if  Mr.  Ceres  was  at  home.  Rather  than  explain 
to  us  who  and  what  Ceres  was,  he  stopped  the  carriage  and  pre- 
tended to  ascertain  from  a  native  the  information  we  desired. 

After  a  short  conversation  in  the  language  of  the  country,  he 
gravely  informed  us  that  Ceres  had  gone  to  Athens,  and  would 
not  return  till  next  week. 

How  that  guide  pitied  our  ignorance. 

Eleusis  is  to-day  a  miserable  village,  whose  inhabitants  look  as 
if  they  ought  to  be  grateful  to  anybody  who  would  drown  them 
in  the  adjoining  bay.  They  crowded  around  us  to  beg  for  money 
and  to  sell  relics  of  the  place  ;  I  bought  several  coins  of  the  time 
of  Hadrian,  paying  about  a  cent  apiece  for  the  lot.  Somewhat  to 
my  surprise  they  were  pronounced  genuine  by  a  coin-sharp  to 
whom  I  showed  them  in  Athens.  I  remarked  by  the  way  that 
you  can  buy  any  quantity  of  antique  coins  in  Athens  and  no  end 
of  statuettes  and  other  articles  of  terra-cotta.  To  obtain  the  gen- 
uine you  must  exercise  considerable  caution  and  be  careful  about 
trading  with  doubtful  personages. 

There  are  several  shops  that  have  a  good  reputation  and  are 
said  to  take  great  pains  to  have  none  but  genuine  coins.  Some- 
times they  have  large  stocks  on  hand  and  some  of  these  coins 
will  be  very  rare ;  persons  interested  in  making  collections  for 
public  and  private  museums  arrive  there  from  time  to  time  and 
almost  exhaust  the  supplies  of  the  dealers.  Consequently  you 
can  never  tell  whether  you  are  likely  to  find  a  large,  medium,  or 
small  stock  of  antique  coins  on  hand  in  the  shops  at  Athens. 

Eleusis  was  anciently  one  of  the  most  celebrated  cities  of 
Greece,  and  its  foundation  dates  in  the  ages  of  mythology.  It 
was  famous  for  the  temple  of  Ceres  and  Proserpine,  and  for  the 
mysteries  which  were  celebrated  there  in  honor  of  these  two  god- 
desses and  considered  the  most  sacred  of  all  Greece  during  the 
time  that  paganism  flourished. 

It  was  one  of  the  original  twelve  states  of  Attica,  and  was  sev- 
eral times  at  war  with  Athens.  In  the  last  of  these  wars  the 
Athenians  were  victorious  and  Eleusis  became  a  i^rovince  of 
Athens  with  the  condition  that  its  religion  was  to  be  respected 


220  THE  THRONE  OF  XERXES. 

and  the  worship  of  Ceres  and  Proserpine  continued  as  before. 
Once  a  year  the  grand  procession  went  to  Athens  by  the  sacred 
way  to  celebrate  the  Eleusinian  mysteries,  which  were  maintained 
for  many  years. 

The  Persians  destroyed  the  temple  and  the  city  but  they  were 
afterwards  reconstructed  only  to  be  destroyed  again. 

We  wandered  among  the  ruins  where  the  immense  and  care- 
fully hewn  blocks  of  marble  contrasted  strangely  with  the  rude 
huts  of  the  present  dwellers  on  the  spot.  The  destruction  was 
so  complete  that  one  sees  little  more  than  the  outline  of  one  of 
the  temples  enclosing  a  space  covered  with  masses  of  hewn  stone 
tumbled  together  in  the  most  complete  confusion 

The  ruins  have  been  only  partially  excavated,  and  there  was  no 
work  in  progress  at  the  time  of  my  visit.  Judging  by  the  remains 
that  were  visible  the  temples  must  have  been  among  the  finest  of 
ancient  Greece. 

From  the  hill  that  formed  the  Acropolis  of  Eleusis,  we  looked 
over  the  bay,  and  saw  the  locality  where  was  fought  the  famous 
battle  of  Salamis,  between  the  Greeks  and  Persians.  The  site  of 
the  silver  throne  of  Xerxes  was  pointed  out,  but  we  were  some- 
what dubious  about  it  as  we  could  not  see  the  throne  though 
looking  repeatedly  and  intently.  The  guide  could  not  tell  where 
it  could  be  found  and  seemed  rather  disgusted  when  we  requested 
him  to  ask  the  natives  if  they  had  seen  anything  of  it  lying 
around  loose. 

He  persisted  that  the  battle  was  fought  more  than  two 
thousand  years  ago  ;  we  listened  to  his  explanation  and  shook 
our  heads  as  if  we  were  not  convinced. 

I  told  him  that  we  had  had  battles  in  our  own  country  not  near 
so  long  ago  and  that  the  people  who  were  killed  there  were  all 
dead. 

He  could  not  understand  what  that  had  to  do  with  the  matter 
and  neither  could  I. 

The  positions  of  the  armies  and  fleets  during  the  battle  are  de- 
scribed with  sufficient  precision  by  the  historians,  though  there 
has  been  much  discussion  concerning  the  movements  which  gave 
the  victory  to  the  Greeks,  and  destroyed  the  Persian  fleet.  The 
locality  of  the  throne  of  Xerxes  is  also  in  dispute,  one  authority 


A    FAMOUS    BATTLE-GROUND.  221 

placing  it  in  the  hollow  between  two  low  hills,  while  another  has 
it  on  the  summit  of  a  hill  overlooking  the  bay.  The  latter  theory 
is  more  likely  to  be  the  correct  one.     Byron  says  of  the  affair  : 

"  The  King  sate  on  the  rocky  brow, 
Which  looks  o'er  sea-born  Salamis, 
And  ships,  by  thousands  lay  below 
And  men  in  nations,  all  were  his. 
He  counted  them  at  break  of  day, 
And  when  the  sun  set,  where  were  they  ?" 

The  day  after  this  excursion  we  made  a  journey  to  Mount  Pen- 
telicus,  whence  came  the  most  of  the  marble  used  in  the  erection 
of  the  Parthenon,  and  other  temples  of  Athens. 

Part  of  the  way  the  road  is  excellent  and  on  another  part  it  is 
not  so  good. 

There  is  a  Greek  convent  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain  and 
when  we  reached  it  we  were  told  that  the  carriages  could  go  no 
further. 

Then  we  had  an  animated  discussion  with  the  guide.  None 
of  us  wished  to  undertake  the  ascent,  which  requires  about  two 
hours  on  foot,  and  so  we  decided  to  let  the  guide  do  it  for  us,  and 
when  we  stated  our  plan  his  eyes  opened  so  wide  that  they  ap- 
peared really  to  drop  out. 

"  I  not  goes  up  mitout  you  gentlemens,"  he  said  as  soon  as  he 
had  sufficiently  recovered  himself  to  be  able  to  speak. 

"  You  won't,  eh  ;  well,  what  have  we  engaged  you  for." 

"  For  five  francs  ze  day,  five  francs  par  Jour." 

"  Very  well,  then,  we  are  to  pay  you  five  francs  a  day  to  be  our 
guide  and  you  are  to  guide  us  where  we  want  to  go." 

"  Yees  !  yees,  zat  is  so." 

"If  we  wanted  to  go  up  that  mountain  you  would  go  with  us." 

"  Certainly,  genteelmens,  certainly  zat  is  to  guide  you  up  ze 
mountain." 

"  Well,  now  let's  have  no  more  nonsense  about  it.  Pentelicus 
would  be  nowhere  by  the  side  of  Pike's  Peak  or  Mount  Shasta. 
And  you  say,  gentlemen  come  here  and  climb  this  potato-hill. 
We  don't  intend  to  climb  it  ourselves,  and  we  came  here  to  do 
it  by  proxy.  We  have  hired  you  for  that  purpose,  so  now  go 
ahead." 


222  HOAXING    A    GUIDE. 

"  But  I  have  been  up  ze  mountain  many  times.  Why  I  go 
now  all  alone  without  ze  genteelmens." 

"  That  is  our  affair.  We  pay  you  five  francs  a  day  for  that 
kind  of  work,  you  are  to  do  anything  for  us  that  we  find  disagree- 
able." 

The  guide  was  puzzled,  and  after  a  thorough  examination  of 
our  faces  to  ascertain  if  we  were  really  lunatics,  he  started  off. 

He  went  about  twenty  yards  and  then  returned,  declaring  that 
he  would  not  ascend  the  mountain  unless  we  furnished  him  with 
a  saddle  horse. 

"Once  for  all,"  said  the  Judge,  "will  you  go  or  not  ?  If  you 
don't  we  shall  be  obliged  to  murder  you,  and  then  report  your 
misconduct  to  the  police." 

"  Veree  well,"  sulkily  replied  the  descendant  of  Sophocles, 
"  I  no  go  ze  mountain,  and  I  no  be  guide  for  you  again.  To- 
morrow you  have  one  other  guide." 

We  took  him  at  his  word  and  that  night  paid  him  off  and  dis- 
charged him.  He  had  been  a  nuisance  from  the  first,  bothering 
us  with  all  sorts  of  importunities,  and  we  were  glad  to  be  rid  of 
him  in  such  a  way  that  he  could  have  no  real  or  fancied  claim 
upon  us.  During  the  rest  of  our  stay  in  Athens  he  did  not  con- 
descend to  speak  to  us  ;  he  had  formerly  been  all  obsequiousness, 
but  now  he  considered  us  quite  unfit  to  associate  with  him.  I 
am  afraid  our  reputations  suffered  somewhat  in  his  hands.  He 
described  us  to  some  gentlemen  who  were  in  Athens  the  week 
after  we  left,  as  the  greatest  fools  he  had  ever  seen. 

Mount  Pentelicus  is  about  thirty-six  hundred  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  sea,  and  the  view  from  its  summit  is  said  to  be  quite 
extensive. 

Looking  toward  the  southwest  one  sees  the  plain  of  Attica 
with  its  smaller  mountains,  and  with  Athens  and  the  Acropolis 
occupying  a  prominent  place  on  the  plain. 

Beyond  them  are  the  Piraeus,  Salamis,  and  Egina,  and  further 
away  the  coast  and  mountains  of  the  Morea,  form  a  background 
to  the  picture.  Toward  the  southeast  are  Mount  Hymettus,  all 
the  promontory  of  Attica  to  Cape  Sunium  and  beyond  this  cape, 
the  jagged  summits  of  the  Cyclades  are  visible.  On  the  north- 
east the  hills  fall  away  in  undulations  till  they  sink  into  the  plain 


A    GLORIOUS    VIEW.  223 

of  Marathon,  where  was  fought  the  battle  that  resulted  in  the 
defeat  and  partial  destruction  of  the  Persian  army.  The  numer- 
ous bays  of  this  part  of  the  coast  are  distinctly  visible,  and  the 
combinations  of  sea,  mountain,  and  plain  make  a  picture  of  un- 
usual beauty. 

In  a  clear  day  nearly  all  the  great  islands  of  the  Greek  Archi- 
pelago can  be  made  out,  and  sometimes  the  coast  of  Asia  is  visi- 
ble away  to  the  east.  Altogether  the  view  from  Mount  Penteli- 
cus  is  one  of  the  finest  in  Greece,  as  it  includes  nearly  the  whole 
of  Athens,  and  awakens  many  historical  associations. 

The  battle  of  Marathon  was  fought  in  the  year  450  B.  C, 
between  the  Persians  and  Greeks.  The  former  had  landed  forty 
thousand  men,  but  owing  to  bad  generalship,  only  half  that  num- 
ber were  engaged. 

The  Persian  army  was  drawn  up  in  the  Plain  of  Marathon, 
with  its  center  directly  in  front  of  the  Greek  position. 

Military  critics  who  have  studied  the  history  of  the  battle  on 
the  memorable  ground,  say  that  the  Persians  were  lamentably 
deficient  in  strategy,  as  their  line  was  too  much  extended,  and  its 
right  was  pushed  out  between  a  swamp  and  the  mountain  chain. 
This  arrangement  secured  them  against  a  flank  movement  on  the 
right,  but  it  left  no  line  of  retreat  for  the  right  wing  in  case  the 
centre  was  pierced. 

The  Greeks  were  about  eighteen  thousand  strong,  according 
to  the  best  authorities.  They  debouched  from  the  mountains  in 
two  columns,  one  attacking  the  Persian  right,  and  the  other  its 
left,  and  in  both  movements  they  were  successful.  Then  they 
attacked  the  Persian  centre,  which  they  defeated  and  put  to 
flight ;  the  vanquished  were  pursued  into  the  sea  and  into  the 
swamps,  and  it  is  said  that  more  of  them  perished  in  this  way 
than  by  the  arms  of  the  conquerors. 

Did  you  ever  see  a  survivor  of  the  battle  of  Marathon  ?  I  have, 
and  instead  of  being  twenty-four  hundred  years  old,  as  you  might 
expect,  he  was  not  fifty. 

We  had  in  our  late  civil  war  a  cavalry  general  who  was  reputed 
to  be  a  good  soldier,  and,  at  the  same  time,  a  tremendous 
"blower."  He  could  tell  wonderful  stories  of  his  and  others' 
prowess  ;  and  the  deeds  of  daring  that  he  narrated  were  of  the 


224  ^    SURVIVOR    OF    MARATHON. 

most  remarkable  character.  Mention  any  battle  in  his  hearing, 
especially  when  he  had  partaken  of  the  beverage  that  cheers  while 
it  inebriates,  and  he  would  be  sure  to  tell  you  that  he  had  led  the 
cavalry  on  the  right,  the  left,  or  the  centre,  just  as  it  might  occur 
to  his  mind. 

One  day,  somebody  mentioned  a  battle  in  Virginia,  and  our 
general  immediately  described  how  he  broke  the  centre  that  day, 
with  four  regiments  of  cavalry. 

Then  another  person  spoke  of  a  battle  that  occurred  the  same 
day  in  Arkansas  or  Louisiana,  and  the  general  told  us  how  he  led 
three  regiments  and  a  battalion  of  cavalry,  against  the  right  wing 
and  broke  it  without  trouble,  capturing  two  batteries  and  half  a 
dozen  wagon  loads  of  ammunition. 

The  attempt  was  now  made  to  floor  him,  but  it  was  unsuccessful. 

"  That  was  a  splendid  move  of  General  Miltiades  at  Marathon," 
said  one  of  the  party,  with  a  most  solemn  face  ;  "  he  attacked  in 
two  columns  an  army  larger  than  his  own." 

"  Ah,  yes,"  our  brave  general  responded,  "  that  was  one  of  the 
toughest  places  I  was  ever  in.  I  led  the  cavalry  against  the  left, 
two  full  brigades  with  two  batteries  and  howitzers.  They  cut  us 
up  with  grape  and  canister,  but  we  broke  them  and  took  all  their 
guns.  The  general  complimented  me  personally  in  presence  of 
his  whole  staff.  I  had  three  horses  shot  under  me  and  two 
bullet  holes  in  my  coat." 

Up  to  that  moment  I  had  never  hoped  to  see  a  survivor  of 
Marathon,  but  you  cannot  always  tell  what  will  happen. 


CHAPTER     XVI. 

THE  GLORY  OF  ATHENS.— ITS  SIGHTS,  SCENES,  RUINS,  AND 

RELICS. 

The  Opera  at  Athens — Handsome  Greeks? — The  King  and  Queen — A  Lovely 
>  Trio — Losing  a  Heart — Byron's  "Maid  of  Athens  " — How  She  Looked — Her 
House  and  History — The  Acropolis  by  Moonlight — Waking  the  Guard — A  Sham 
Permit — "  Backsheesh  " — The  Parthenon  by  Night — Greek  Gypsies — Among  the 
Curiosity  Shops — Dr.  Schliemann  and  his  Trojan  Discoveries — The  Gold  and 
Silver  Vases  of  King  Priam — Where  They  Were  Found — Relics  of  the  Sack  of 
Troy — Curious  Workmanship — Some  Account  of  the  Excavations — We  Leave 
Athens — A  Queer  Steamer — "  Pay  or  Go  to  Prison  " — End  of  Our  Steamship 
Adventure. 

THE  Opera  was  in  fashion  at  Athens,  at  the  time  of  our  visit, 
and  all  went  there  on  the  second  evening  of  our  stay  in  the 
city.  The  theatre  is  rather  small  and  the  company  not  first-class, 
but  on  the  whole  the  house  and  the  performance  were  quite  as 
good  as  one  could  expect  for  a  city  of  the  population  of  the 
Greek  capital.  Both  chorus  and  orchestra  were  small,  and  not 
very  well  trained,  and  the  scenery  was  evidently  made  to  do  duty 
in  a  great  many  ways. 

In  my  eyes  the  chief  attractions  were  the  people  in  the  audi- 
ence, and  I  did  not  pay  very  close  attention  to  the  performance. 
Here  and  there  you  could  see  the  national  costume,  but  the  great 
majority  of  those  present  were  attired  «  la  Paris,  or  rather  in  the 
French  costumes  of  fashions  a  year  or  two  old.  The  national 
costume  is  worn  only  by  the  pallicares,  who  claim  to  be  the 
descendants  of  the  original  Greeks,  and  they  show  a  great  deal 
of  pride  of  descent.  Here  is  a  description  of  the  dress  of  a 
pallicare  of  Athens, 

A   muslin    shirt  with  a  broad  collar,  but  without  a  cravat ; 

(225) 


226  AN    ATHENIAN    OPERA. 

Stockings  of  goodly  length  and  gaiters  buttoned  up  to  the  knee, 
not  unlike  the  shooting  gaiters  of  England  and  America.  Then 
comes  a  full  skirt,  generally  of  some  white  material,  gathered  in 
plaits  at  the  waist,  and  reaching  to  the  knee  or  just  below  it; 
then  a  small  vest  without  sleeves,  and  another  richly  embroidered, 
and  with  open  sleeves. 

There  are  garters  of  colored  silk,  and  a  belt  of  the  same  mate- 
rial, but  the  latter  is  generally  concealed  by  a  broad  belt  of 
leather,  which  sustains  a  tobacco  pouch,  a  handkerchief,  a  purse, 
and,  according  to  the  old  custom,  a  pair  of  pistols,  though  the 
latter  are  usually  left  at  home.  On  the  head  is  worn  a  red  cap, 
something  after  the  Turkish  pattern,  but  larger  at  the  top,  and 
having  a  blue  tassel.  The  women  of  the  same  class  wear  a  long 
skirt  of  silk,  or  some  cheaper  material,  according  to  their  finan- 
cial ability,  with  a  velvet  jacket  open  in  front  ;  and  for  a  head- 
dress they  wear  a  red  cap  like  that  of  the  men,  but  with  a  larger 
top.  It  bends  over  to  the  ear,  and  appears  as  if  it  were  ready  to 
fall  off.  Sometimes  they  omit  the  cap,  and  wear  a  large  braid  of 
hair  twisted  around  the  head.  It  is  not  the  natural  growth,  but 
of  the  kind  known  in  America  as  "store  hair ;"  it  belongs  to  the 
wearer  either  by  inheritance  or  purchase. 

I  looked  among  the  audience  for  pretty  faces,  but  saw  only  a 
few.  One  box  contained  three  women  who  would  be  called  hand- 
some in  any  part  of  the  world,  but  they  turned  out  to  be  Alban- 
ians, and  not  of  the  true  Greek  race.  The  other  pretty  ones 
were  few  and  far  between,  and  on  the  whole  I  was  fully  prepared 
to  endorse  the  assertion  of  Edmond  About,  that  the  Greek  men 
are  much  handsomer  than  the  women. 

In  the  afternoon  promenades,  when  the  band  played  in  the 
public  square,  I  had  no  better  luck  in  my  search  for  beauty  than 
in  the  opera  house.  The  prettiest  women  are  oftener  seen  in 
the  rural  districts  and  in  the  islands  than  at  Athens,  and  the  pen- 
insula of  the  Morea  is  said  to  contain  the  best  specimens  of 
feminine  beauty. 

The  king  and  queen  were  in  their  box ;  they  are  regular  at- 
tendants upon  the  opera,  and  the  king  is  said  to  pay  a  portion  of 
the  subsidy  out  of  his  private  purse. 

They  are  a  young  and  not  ill-looking  couple,  and  were  dressed 
in  ordinary  evening  costume,  as  if  out  for  a  dinner  or  a  party. 


GRECIAN   BELLES.  22/ 

He  is  tall  and  thin,  and  she  has  a  tendency  to  stoutness,  and 
both  are  blondes,  the  king  being  Danish  (son  of  the  King  of 
Denmark),  and  the  queen  being  Russian  (daughter  of  the  Grand 
Duke  Constantine,  and  niece  of  the  Emperor  Alexander  II). 
They  present  a  marked  contrast  in  physiognomy  to  the  dark- 
skinned  and  black-haired  Greeks,  and  the  most  unobser\^ant 
stranger  would  never  take  them  for  natives  of  the  country. 

The  succession  to  the  throne  appears  to  be  well  secured,  as 
the  royal  pair  have  three  children,  and  are  yet  very  far  from  old 
age. 

And  while  on  this  subject,  let  me  say  that  in  Egypt,  a  few 
months  later,  I  saw  three  sisters  that  were  the  perfection  of 
beauty,  the  admiration  of  the  foreign  men  in  Cairo,  and  the  envy 
of  all  foreign  women.  They  were  daughters  of  a  Greek  merch- 
ant living  at  Alexandria,  and  were  the  belles  of  the  foreign  popu- 
lation of  that  city.  I  could  have  lost  my  heart  to  any  one  of  the 
trio,  but  no  favorable  opportunity  offered,  and  consequently  I  left 
the  Orient  heart  whole. 

Now,  for  a  little  information  about  the  population  and  govern- 
ment. Those  who  do  not  wish  it,  may  go  on  till  they  find  some- 
thing more  interesting.  The  population  of  the  kingdom,  includ- 
ing the  Ionian  and  other  islands,  is  less  than  a  million  and  a  half, 
according  to  the  last  census.  The  government  is  a  constitu- 
tional and  hereditary  monarchy,  and  the  constitution  guarantees 
to  the  citizens  equality  before  the  law,  personal  and  religious 
liberty,  freedom  of  the  press,  public  instruction,  and  the  abolition 
of  confiscation  and  the  penalty  of  death  for  political  offenders. 
For  purposes  of  government,  the  country  is  divided  into  thirteen 
departments,  fifty-nine  districts,  and  three  hundred  and  fifty-two 
communes.  The  prefets  of  the  departments,  and  sotis-prcfets  of 
districts,  are  nominated  by  the  king,  subject  to  approval  by  the 
chamber  of  deputies.  The  communal  chiefs  and  councils  are 
elected  by  the  people  over  whom  they  are  to  preside. 

The  system  of  justice  is  based  on  the  Code  Napoleon,  and  the 
code  of  commerce  is  likewise  on  the  French  plan. 

Criminal  matters  are  subject  to  trial  by  jury,  and  the  same  is 
the  case  with  certain  civil  affairs.  In  general,  the  courts  appear 
to  be  well  organized,  but  the  judges  are  so  badly  paid  that  some 
15 


228  THE    NATION    OF    PELOPONNESUS. 

of  them  cannot  support  their  families  and  be  respectable  without 
taking  an  occasional  bribe. 

The  religion  of  Greece  is  of  the  kind  known  as  the  Greek 
Church,  and  almost  identical  with  that  of  Russia.  In  Syra  and 
other  islands  of  the  Archipelago,  there  are  many  Catholics. 

There  is  only  one  completed  railway  in  all  Greece,  and  it  has 
the  enormous  length  of  four  miles. 

Carriage  roads  are  not  numerous,  and  most  of  them  are  bad ; 
consequently  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  interior  of  the 
country  is  not  much  developed. 

Agriculture  is  in  a  primitive  stage,  and  the  soil,  which  does 
not  lack  fertility,  has  very  little  opportunity  to  show  what  it  can 
do.  Commerce  is  more  prosperous  than  agriculture,  and  most  of 
the  wealth  of  Greece  is  engaged  in  it.  Most  of  the  commerce  of 
the  Levant  is  in  the  hands  of  Greeks,  and  there  are  many  merch- 
ants of  that  nationality  established  in  other  countries.  Most  of 
them  have  an  affectionate  remembrance  for  their  native  land, 
and  frequently  make  heavy  donations  in  its  behalf. 

Of  course  the  country  must  have  an  army  and  navy.  The  for- 
mer includes  about  fifteen  thousand  soldiers  of  all  arms  and  an 
enormous  number  of  officers  ;  there  are  seventy  generals  in  the 
army,  and  a  proportionate  number  of  other  grades. 

The  navy  has  an  equally  large  staff  of  officers ;  it  has  about 
thirty-five  ships,  mounting  one  hundred  and  ninety  guns. 

The  finances  are  in  that  deplorable  condition  described  by  Mr. 
Micawber,  when  he  alluded  to  the  practice  of  allowing  expendi- 
tures to  exceed  the  income.  The  annual  revenue  of  Greece  is 
about  a  million  of  francs  less  than  the  expenses.  A  minister  of 
finance  of  ability  would  be  a  great  blessing  to  the  country. 

I  could  give  a  few  more  solid  chunks  of  wisdom,  but  I  forbear 
out  of  pity  for  the  reader. 

My  head  is  an  ant-hill  of  figures,  but  I  shall  proceed  to  seal  up 
the  outlets,  and  keep  the  units  and  tens  in  their  place. 

I  can  tell  you  the  number  of  square  miles  in  Greece,  the  height 
of  her  mountains,  and  depth  of  her  rivers,  the  age  of  the  young- 
est child  in  the  country,  and  what  the  king  had  for  dinner  one 
day  ;  I  could  even  give  the  number  of  hairs  on  the  back  of  a  sea 
turtle,  and  the  price  of  a  bottle  of  wine,  for  which  you  pay  ten 
francs,  but  I  forbear. 


THE    "  MAID    OF   ATHENS. 


229 


One  afternoon,  while  we  were  wandering  about  Athens  and  its 
suburbs,  our  guide  pointed  to  a  low  house  of  most  unpretending 
appearance,  and  enjoined  us  to  "look  at  ze  house." 

We  looked,  and  asked  if  there  was  anything  remarkable 
about  it. 

"  That  is  ze  house  of  ze  *  Maid  of  Athens'  of  ze  Lord  Byron." 

Of  course  we  took  a  second  look  at  the  house,  and  as  we  did  so, 
we  saw  at  one  of  the  windows  the  face  of  an  old,  very  old  woman. 

"Ah,  zere  is  ze  Maid  of  Athens  herself.  She  look  out  and  see 
us.     You  will  go  in  ze  house  .-'" 

We  held  a  short  consultation  and  decided  that  we,  a  party  of 
strangers  without 
introductions  in 
any  form,  had  no  \ 
right  to  thrust 
ourselves  into 
her  house  and 
presence.  The 
"Doubter"  was 
the  only  one  who 
thought  it  would 
be  the  proper 
thing  to  rap  at 
the  door  and  say 
we  wanted  to  see 
the  lady.  We 
walked  on,  and  he  followed  us  protesting  that  he  wanted  to  see 
her,  but  we  paid  no  heed  to  his  words.  While  walking  side- 
wise  with  his  eyes  fixed  upon  the  house  he  slipped  and  fell 
into  a  large  pool  of  mud,  and  the  incident  changed  the  currents 
of  his  thoughts  so  that  he  said  no  more  about  the  woman 
whom  Byron  has  made  famous  throughout  the  English  reading 
world. 

The  Maid  of  Athens  of  the  well  known  poem, — "  Zoe  mou  sas 
agapo" — was  twice  married,  and,  at  the  time  of  my  visit  to  Athens, 
was  far  advanced  in  her  second  widowhood.  I  was  told  that  her 
second  husband  was  an  Englishman,  a  Mr.  Black,  and  that  she 
was  left  at  his  death  with  very  slender  means  of  support.     A  sub- 


PICKLING    THE    "  DOUBTER." 


230  THE    ACROPOLIS    BY    MOONLIGHT. 

scription  was  raised  for  her  in  England  so  that  the  last  years  of 
her  life  were  passed  in  tolerable  comfort.  I  heard  in  London, 
just  previous  to  my  return  to  America,  that  she  died  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1874,  and  that  the  little  house  where  she  lived  is  now  oc- 
cupied by  her  sister. 

Whether  the  Maid  of  Athens  was  ever  as  beautiful  as  Byron 
represented  her,  I  am  unable  to  say.  When  I  saw  her  it  was 
more  than  fifty  years  after  the  penning  of  the  poem,  and  fifty 
years,  you  know,  will  make  great  changes  in  the  features  and 
forms  of  the  best  of  us.  The  face  I  saw  at  the  window  was  old, 
withered,  and  wrinkled;  it  was  not  an  unpleasant  face,  but  age 
and  sorrow  had  obliterated  all  the  beauty  which  may  have  shone 
there  half  a  century  ago. 

The  moon  reached  the  full  while  we  were  in  Athens,  and  we 
embraced  the  opportunity  to  see  the  Acropolis  by  moonlight. 

In  theory  it  is  necessary  to  have  a  permit  from  the  authorities 
to  go  there  at  night,  but  a  friend  hinted  to  us  that  nothing  of  the 
kind  was  necessary.  We  followed  his  directions  and  this  was  the 
result. 

It  was  nine  o'clock  and  later  when  we  went  there  and  rapped 
at  the  gate.  We  rapped  loudly,  waited  awhile  and  then  rapped 
again. 

The  whole  establishment  of  guards  was  evidently  sound  asleep, 
as  all  our  rapping  brought  no  response. 

Then  we  rattled  the  gate,  threw  stones  on  the  roof  of  the  hut, 
shouted  and  made  a  noise  generally. 

No  response. 

Then  more  rattling  and  rapping, — more  stone  throwing  and 
shouting  and  with  the  same  result  as  before. 

Finally  I  put  my  face  to  the  bars  of  the  gate  and  at  the  very 
tip-top  and  summit  of  my  voice  shouted  the  magic  word, 

"BACKSHEESH!!" 

Instantly  there  was  a  sound  of  feet  and  voices  in  the  hut,  and 
half  a  minute  later  a  guard  came  to  the  gate  and  said  something 
in  Greek  which  I  did  not  understand.  Then  I  passed  him  a 
franc  which  his  fingers  closed  upon,  and  I  showed  him  another 
with  an  intimation  that  he  would  receive  it  after  we  had  seen  the 
Acropolis. 


THE    "OPEN    SESAME. 


231 


That  guard  wasn't  an  idiot ;  money  he  understood,  but  it  was 
also  necessary  that  we  should  have  a  written  permit,  and  he  so 
insinuated. 

I  gave  him  the  first  piece  of  paper  I  could  find  in  my  pocket — 
I  think  it  was  my  wine  bill  on  the  steamer  from  Constantinople  ; 
he  looked  at  it  by  the  moonlight,  nodded,  said  "  bono,"  and  opened 
the  gate  without  further  delay. 


"  I;ACK.SlU.Ki,H 


"  BACKSHEESH 


It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  Acropolis  by  moonlight,  just 
as  impossible  as  it  is  to  forget  it.  I  never  attempt  what  I  know 
I  cannot  do  and  therefore  I  leave  the  picture  to  the  reader's  im- 
agination. And  I  would  say  to  anybody  who  is  going  to  Athens, 
be  sure  and  time  your  visit  so  as  to  be  there  near  the  full  moon, 
and  on  no  account  fail  to  spend  an  hour  or  two  of  a  clear  night 
in  the  Parthenon  and  among  the  temples  that  surround  it.  I 
think  the  grandeur  and  majesty  of  the  place  are  better  felt  at  that 
time  than  in  the  broad  light  of  day.  The  softening  effects  of  the 
rays  of  the  moon  are  nowhere  more  perfectly  shown  than  in  the 
ruins  of  the  Parthenon.  I  have  seen  the  Coliseum  at  Rome, 
and  the  temple  of  Karnak  in  Egypt  by  moonlight,  and 
must  give  the  palm  of  merit  to  the  Acropolis.     These  are  built  of 


232  A    CARAVAN    OF    GYPSIES. 

grey  or  yellowish  stone  which  absorbs  some  of  the  rays  and  gives 
a  certain  somberness  to  the  picture.  But  the  Parthenon  is  of 
white  marble,  so  that  the  moonbeams  light  up  the  entire  scene 
with  a  warmth  and  distinctness  that  almost  rival  the  effect  of  the 
morning  sun. 

One  day  just  outside  of  Athens  we  saw  a  small  caravan  of 
Greek  gypsies.  They  were  not  a  large  party,  some  twenty  per- 
sons in  all,  of  both  sexes,  and  the  usual  variety  of  ages.  They 
were  dressed  in  a  costume  that  seemed  a  compromise  between 
the  Greek  and  Turkish,  and  some  of  their  garments  were  in  rags. 
The  men  had  a  proud,  haughty  air,  as  if  the  country  belonged  to 
them  and  they  carried  nothing  but  their  rifles  and  other  weapons. 
The  women  were  not  so  fortunate,  as  all  of  them  had  burdens ; 
the  foremost  person  in  the  caravan  was  a  woman  who  bore  on 
her  back  a  cask  that  might  hold  eight  or  ten  gallons,  and,  by  the 
way  she  bent  forward  I  judged  that  the  cask  was  pretty  well  filled. 
She  was  leading  a  string  of  ponies  and  each  pony  had  a  good  sup- 
ply of  baggage  on  his  back  ;  behind  this  group  there  was  another 
woman  leading  another  lot  of  beasts  of  burden. 

Some  of  the  women  and  two  of  the  men  were  mounted  on 
horses  ;  the  women  seemed  to  be  stowed  with  other  baggage  be- 
cause they  were  too  weak  to  walk,  but  the  men  were  riding  for 
the  sake  of  personal  comfort  and  not  from  necessity.  A  dozen 
sheep  were  in  the  rear  of  the  ponies,  and  were  kept  from  straying 
by  some  of  the  men  and  by  two  or  three  wolfish  looking  dogs. 
Some  of  the  pack  horses  had  coops  of  chickens  among  their  loads, 
and  on  one  of  the  packs  a  couple  of  hens  were  standing  erect  and 
appearing  to  enjoy  their  afternoon  ride.  Altogether  the  caval- 
cade was  quite  picturesque  and  I  regretted  that  I  had  no  time 
to  make  a  sketch  of  it. 

We  devoted  an  afternoon  to  the  old  curiosity  shops  of  Athens, 
of  which  there  is  a  goodly  number.  Vases,  coins,  statuettes  and 
all  sorts  of  antiquities — many  of  them  modern — were  shown  to 
us  and  we  made  a  few  purchases.  Some  of  the  jewelry  was  ex- 
quisite and  showed  that  the  gold  workers  of  ancient  times  were 
quite  as  skillful  as  their  modern  brethren. 

Dr.  Schliemann,  who  has  made  himself  famous  by  excavations 
on  the  site  of  ancient  Troy,  was  then  in  Athens,  and  through  the 


AN    ANCIENT    TREASURE    CHEST.  233 

influence  of  a  friend  I  obtained  an  opportunity  to  examine  his 
very  interesting  collection.  He  had  a  great  number  of  vases  and 
other  specimens  of  pottery  which  he  obtained  at  Troy  from  ex- 
cavations at  depths  varying  from  twenty  to  a  hundred  and  fifty 
feet.  A  few  of  the  vases  bear  inscriptions,  but  thus  far  no  one 
has  been  able  to  decipher  them,  and  the  forms  of  most  of  the  ar- 
ticles discovered,  show  that  they  belong  to  a  very  remote  period. 

There  is  a  difference  of  opinion  among  the  savans  concerning 
the  antiquity  of  the  articles  discovered  by  Dr.  Schliemann,  and 
as  I  know  a  great  deal  less  about  the  subject  than  they  do  I  do 
not  propose  to  take  sides. 

The  enterprising  explorer  was  full  of  courtesy  and  left  his  desk 
to  accompany  me  for  an  hour  or  more  through  his  collection.  He 
reserved  the  greatest  curiosities  till  the  last. 

After  showing  me  many  vases,  cinerary  urns,  weapons,  and 
implements  of  stone  and  copper,  sculptures  on  granite,  and  other 
things  which  were  stored  in  a  shed  adjoining  his  house,  he  led 
me  to  his  study  to  inspect  a  collection  of  photographs  which  he 
made  at  Troy.  While  I  was  looking  at  these  he  unlocked  a 
cabinet  and  brought  out  a  number  of  gold  dishes,  vases,  neck- 
laces, and  rings,  and  placed  them  on  the  table. 

"  Here,"  said  the  Doctor,  his  eye  kindling  with  delight  as  he 
spoke,  "  here  is  the  treasure  from  the  palace  of  King  Priam.  In 
my  excavations,  I  came  upon  the  foundations  of  the  palace,  and 
one  morning  my  wife  and  I,  while  my  workmen  were  at  break- 
fast, managed  to  hit  upon  the  locality  of  the  treasure  chest.  You 
observe  that  some  of  these  things  appear  to  have  been  subjected 
to  great  heat,  &c.,  and  partially  melted.  This  was  done,  I  pre- 
sume, at  the  burning  of  the  palace,  after  its  capture  by  the 
Greeks,  and  these  articles  had  escaped  discovery  at  the  time  the 
place  was  sacked.  The  heavy  masses  of  debris  that  fell  upon 
them  served  as  their  protection,  and  they  lay  undiscovered 
through  the  thousands  of  years  that  have  passed  since  the  siege 
of  Troy. 

"  Some  of  the  scientists  dispute  my  claim  that  these  things 
belonged  to  Priam,  but  for  myself  I  have  no  doubt  of  it.  I  think 
you  can  be  entirely  confident  that  you  are  examining  and  hand- 
ling dishes  that  have  been  touched  by  that  celebrated  king." 


234  RELICS    DISCOVERED    BY    DR.    SCHLIEMANN. 

I  need  not  say  that  I  was  greatly  interested  in  the  collection, 
and  that  I  lingered  over  it  as  long  as  politeness  would  allow  me 
to  do  so. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  things  I  saw  was  a  necklace  and 
head-dress  of  pure  gold — the  workmanship  was  exquisite,  and 
there  were  upwards  of  five  hundred  separate  pieces  in  the  two 
articles.  The  style  of  the  head-dress  and  necklace  was  like  that 
we  see  on  pictures  of  Assyrian  kings,  and  the  ornaments  were, 
doubtless,  the  property  of  some  high  personage.  The  pieces  had 
been  carefully  put  together  by  the  doctor,  and  he  showed  me 
photographs  of  them,  taken  before  his  laborious  task  began  and 
after  it  was  finished. 

I  should  add  that  the  excavations  at  Troy  were  made  by  Dr. 
Schliemann,  at  his  own  expense  and  under  his  personal  super- 
vision. He  had  many  difficulties  to  contend  with,  including  the 
opposition  of  the  Turkish  government  and  the  thievish  propensi- 
ties of  his  workmen.  They  robbed  him  at  all  opportunities,  and 
it  was  recently  ascertained  that  by  far  the  larger  part  of  the  gold 
vases  and  other  valuables  from  the  ruins  of  the  palace  were  con- 
cealed by  the  workmen,  and  their  discovery  was  quite  unknown 
to  him.  The  Doctor  was  accompanied  by  his  wife,  who  assisted 
him  in  every  way  in  her  power  ;  but  it  was  impossible  for  them  to 
be  everywhere  at  once,  and  to  supervise  excavations  going  on  in 
half  a  dozen  places  simultaneously. 

When  we  were  ready  for  departure  we  packed  our  baggage 
and  drove  to  the  Piraeus,  where  we  had  a  choice  of  two  steamers 
to  Syra.  One  was  the  Stamboul,  our  old  acquaintance,  on  which 
we  had  passed  a  very  rough  night  ;  the  other  was  a  Greek 
steamer,  and  we  determined  to  inspect  her. 

A  very  brief  inspection  of  her  cabin  was  enough  for  us.  The 
captain  looked  as  if  he  hadn't  washed  himself  since  he  was  born, 
and  the  steward  appeared  never  to  have  been  guilty  of  such 
an  act. 

The  rooms  had  very  little  bedding,  and  the  little  that  they 
possessed  was  so  dirty  that  it  had  evidently  been  used  for  the 
door-matting  of  a  well-patronized  bar  room  in  muddy  weather, 
and  had  afterwards  served  as  the  flooring  of  a  pig-pen. 


COMING  "DOWN   WITH    THE    DUST.  235 

The  steward  spoke  nothing  but  Greek,  and  he  had  no  assist- 
ant ;  as  near  as  we  could  make  out,  he  was  steward,  head-waiter, 
chambermaid,  assistant-waiter,  cabin  boy,  cook,  and  forecastle 
attendant — anything  you  might  happen  to  want.  We  were  not 
long  in  deciding  how  we  should  travel.  The  StamboiU  was  not 
all  that  fancy  paints  a  passenger  ship,  but  she  was  infinitely 
preferable  to  the  Mavrocoiipolo,  or  whatever  her  outlandish  name 
was. 

This  Greek  steamer  had  the  monopoly  of  the  passenger  trade 
between  Syra  and  the  Piraeus,  and  the  other  lines  were  not  al- 
lowed to  sell  tickets  for  that  route.  When  we  came  to  Greece, 
we  bought  tickets  from  Constantinople  to  the  Piraeus,  and  had 
no  trouble  ;  we  now  wanted  to  buy  one  to  Syra  by  the  Austrian 
Lloyd  line,  where  we  were  to  change  to  a  ship  of  the  Messagerics 
Maritime s  (French).  But  we  couldn't  do  anything  of  the  kind, 
and  the  only  way  we  could  get  around  it  was  to  buy  third-class 
tickets  to  Chio  (the  first  port  beyond  Syra),  and  then  pay  to  the 
steward  on  board  the  Stainboiil  the  difference  between  first  and 
third-class  prices. 

Was  there  ever  a  law  so  carefully  drawn  that  sombody  could 
not  devise  a  plan  to  get  around  it .'' 

The  company  bit  us  pretty  badly — the  fleas  helped  them  a 
little — as  we  found  that  we  had  to  pay  very  dearly  for  our  con- 
nivance at  violation  ot  the  Greek  law.     This  was  the  way  of  it. 

We  bought  third-class  tickets  to  Chio  and  went  on  board, 
where  we  paid  the  steward  the  difference  between  first  and  third- 
class.  In  first-class  fare,  where  tickets  are  bought  at  the  agencies, 
meals  and  rooms  are  included.  But  after  paying  full  rates,  we  were 
told  that  we  had  only  secured  the  privileges  of  the  cabin,  and  must 
pay  extra  for  meals  and  berths. 

We  called  for  the  captain,  and  protested  that  it  was  a  swindle. 
He  shrugged  his  shoulders,  showed  us  the  regulations,  and  said 
we  must  pay.     If  we  didn't  he  must  put  us  in  prison  at  Syra. 

We  thought  the  prison  might  be  something  like  the  cabin  of 
the  Greek  steamer,  and  we  paid  the  bill  with  the  rapidity  of  a 
well-trained  flash  of  lightnmg.  But  we  didn't  change  our  opinion 
on  the  subject,  and  to  this  hour  we  think  that  the  directors  of  the 
Austrian  Lloyds  are 

I  pause,  as  there  may  be  an  international  law  of  libel. 


CHAPTER     XVII. 


ADVENTURES  IN  QUARANTINE.— RHODES  AND  ITS  MARVELS. 

Missing  our  Steamer — A  Serious  Dilemma — A  Study  of  Faces — Making  a  Row  and 
What  Came  of  It — Under  the  Yellow  Flag — Adventures  of  a  Quarantined  Tra- 
veller— Escaping  the  Plague — Mal-de-Mer — A  Laughable  Incident — Getting  on 
Our  Sea- Legs — Custom  House  Troubles — The  Potency  of  "Backsheesh" — Ori- 
ental Fashions  in  New  York — "  Doing  "  a  Custom  House  Inspector — A  Curious 
Tradition — The  "  Lamb"  as  a  Trade  Mark — The  Temple  of  Diana — One  of  the 
"  Seven  Wonders  " — Singular  Discoveries — A  Horde  of  Scoundrels — The  Island 
of  Rhodes— The  Colossus— A  Wonderful  City— The  Knights  of  St.  John— Their 
Exploits — Surrendering  to  the  Turks. 

WHEN  I  went  on  deck  the  morning  after  our  departure  from 
the  Piraeus,  the  steamer  was  at  anchor  in  the  harbor  of 
Syra.  We  expected  to  catch  the  French  steamer  that  was  to 
sail  that  afternoon  for  Smyrna  and  the  Syrian  coast,  and  I  looked 
around  for  the  Tibrc,  which  was  her  name. 

She  was  nowhere  in  sight,  and  a  boatman  who  wanted  a  job 
was  kind  enough  to  inform  me  that  she  had  come  and  gone 
twelve  hours  before. 

Here  was  a  pretty  caldron  of  piscatorial  productions.  As  the 
rest  of  our  party  made  their  appearance  up  the  cabin  stairs  I 
broke  the  dreadful  news  to  them,  and  made  a  careful  study  of 
their  features  as  they  received  it.  If  there  had  been  any  pro- 
fane persons  in  our  number,  I  think  a  swearing  band  could  have 
been  organized  without  much  difficulty. 

Weren't  wc  on  our  ears  and  didn't  we  go  to  the  office  of  the 
company  and  make  a  row  } 

(236) 


DAYS    IN    QUARANTINE.  237 

We  had  a  printed  time-table  and  demanded  why  the  steamer 
sailed  before  her  advertised  time.  The  agent  explained  that  he 
was  very  sorry,  but  the  fact  was  the  steamer  did  not  touch  at 
Naples  on  account  of  the  quarantine  there,  and  therefore  she  had 
reached  Syra  twenty-four  hours  ahead  of  time.  There  was  no- 
thing for  her  to  do  at  Syra  and  no  reason  why  she  should  wait, 
and  so  he  had  let  her  go. 

We  demanded  a  special  steamer  to  take  us  to  Smyrna,  in 
season  to  overtake  the  Tibre,  but  the  agent  wouldn't  give  it. 
We  could  hire  one  for  one  thousand  dollars,  but  that  was  paying 
rather  high  for  our  passage,  and  we  demurred. 

The  only  thing  left  for  us  was  to  take  a  small  steamer  of  the 
Austrian  Lloyd's  that  was  to  leave  next  day  and  might  get  us  to 
Smyrna  in  season  to  catch  the  Tibrc.  The  agent  telegraphed 
the  state  of  the  case  to  the  agent  at  Smyrna,  and  away  we  went 
for  the  other  boat. 

There  she  lay  in  the  harbor,  a  little,  old,  paddle  steamer, 
named  the  Wien,  a  wooden  craft  that  had  been  running  a  quarter 
of  a  century.  She  did  not  look  inviting  externally.  We  wanted 
to  go  aboard  and  take  a  look  at  her  cabins,  but  here  was  a  diffi- 
culty. A  yellow  flag  floated  from  her  topmast.  She  was  in 
quarantine,  and  if  we  once  set  foot  on  her  we  could  not  go  ashore 
again  in  Syra.  She  had  come  from  Trieste  by  way  of  Italy, 
and  there  was  a  five  days'  quarantine  in  Greece  against  all  ships 
from  Italy.  So  we  waited  until  about  the  time  of  her  departure. 
She  was  stopping  for  the  steamer  with  the  mails  from  Trieste, 
and  there  were  no  less  than  four  steamers  in  port  waiting  the 
same  mails. 

We  took  a  lounge  around  the  public  square  of  Syra,  and  drank 
beer  and  coffee  at  a  restaurant  ;  then  we  took  another  lounge 
and  more  beer  and  coffee,  and  then  we  took  a  couple  of  carriages 
and  drove  to  the  interior  of  the  Island,  where  there  were  some 
pretty  orange  groves  and  some  very  attractive  country  seats. 
Then  we  came  back  and  drank  some  beer  and  coffee,  and  went 
on  the  steamboat — the  steamer  that  brought  us  from  the  Piraeus — 
to  sleep. 

Next  morning  we  started  for  the  same  sort  of  excitements  as 
on  the  day  before,  and  just  as  we  started,  we  saw  the  Trieste 


238  A    DELICATE    OPERATION. 

Steamer  poking  her  nose  around  a  headland  and  steaming  toward 
the  harbor.  Then  we  gave  up  our  projects,  and  prepared  to 
transfer  ourselves  to  the  Wieu. 

She  lay  near  the  entrance  to  the  harbor,  and  an  ugly  wind 
was  blowing  straight  into  the  entrance.  The  wind  wasn't  much 
for  a  steamer,  though  she  rocked  about  considerably,  but  it  was 
altogether  different  with  a  row  boat,  such  as  we  engaged  to  trans- 
fer us.  We  made  a  contract  for  two  boats,  one  for  us  and  one 
for  our  baggage,  for  the  sanitary  reasons  of  the  quarantine.  The 
boat  with  our  baggage  was  towed  alongside  by  a  rope  about 
thirty  feet  long,  and  then  a  couple  of  men  descended  from  the 
steamer  and  put  the  baggage  on  board.  Then  the  boat  was 
towed  away  again,  and  nobody  could  enter  it  until  a  plentiful 
supply  of  salt  water  had  been  thrown  over  it. 

As  for  ourselves,  we  had  gingerly  work  to  get  on  board.  Our 
boat  went  to  the  steamer's  gangway,  and  was  held  under  it  by 
means  of  hooks  and  ropes,  but  she  was  not  allowed  to  touch  it. 
The  waves  were  short  and  choppy,  and  we  had  to  watch  our 
chances  and  jump  one  by  one  upon  the  gangway.  The  instant 
we  touched  it  we  were  in  quarantine,  and  so  was  everything 
about  us.  We  got  on  board  without  accident,  and  then  came 
the  work  of  paying.  The  price  had  been  fixed  beforehand,  and 
the  boatman  wanted  his  pay  at  starting,  but  we  were  firm  in  re- 
fusing. This  was  in  accordance  with  our  inflexible  rule  never  to 
pay  boatmen,  hackmen,  ci  id  oume  gciiiis,  until  their  services 
were  ended. 

But  there  was  reason  in  the  request  of  the  boatmen  on  this  oc- 
casion, and  we  might  have  relaxed  enough  to  pay  him  before 
getting  on  board  the  steamer.  Had  we  paid  in  the  boat  he  could 
have  received  the  money  directly  from  our  hands  without  any 
nonsense.  When  we  were  all  on  board,  one  of  our  party  went 
to  the  foot  of  the  gangway  and  held  out  the  stipulated  napoleon. 
We  and  all  our  napoleons  were  infected  the  instant  we  came  on 
board,  and  the  boatman  was  obliged  to  receive  his  in  a  tin  cup 
of  salt  water.  And  if  the  party  who  paid  him  had  dropped  over- 
board while  leaning  down,  and  the  boatman  had  rescued  him,  the 
boat  and  all  it  contained  would  have  gone  into  quarantine  the 


"rocked  in  the  cradle  of  the  deep."  239 

prescribed  number  of  days.  Such  an  event  has  occurred  several 
times  in  Syra  and  other  ports.  In  time  of  quarantine  a  man 
must  be  very  careful  about  his  movements. 

The  Wieu  got  away  from  Syra  about  four  in  the  afternoon, 
and  put  out  into  a  very  rough  sea.  The  lady  of  our  party  went 
to  bed  immediately,  her  husband  didn't  feel  very  well,  and  two 
others  of  the  party  were  as  cheerful  as  a  pair  of  chickens  that 
have  been  caught  in  a  thunder  shower.  The  fifth  member  of  the 
crowd  knew  he  wouldn't  be  seasick,  but  had  no  appetite  worth 
mentioning,  and  I  was  left  alone  in  my  glory,  to  pace  the  deck 
or  go  below,  as  I  pleased. 

I  haven't  been  seasick  for  a  reasonable  number  of  years,  and 
didn't  want  to  begin  again  at  that  time  and  place.  I  have  a  sus- 
picion that  I  take  a  malicious  delight  in  showing  how  well  I  can 
be  when  others  around  me  are  covering  the  sea  with  maledictions, 
and  furnishing  pleasure  and  undigested  food  to  the  fishes  that 
follow  in  the  wake  of  the  ship. 

To  give  an  illustration  of  the  way  I  can  stand  the  rolling  of 
the  "  deep  and  dark  blue  ocean,"  let  me  relate  one  incident. 

Several  years  ago  I  went  on  board  a  steamer  at  Civita  Vecchia, 
for  Genoa.  When  we  left  Leghorn  there  were  about  sixty  pas- 
sengers, as  happy  as  though  they  had  just  returned  from  a  wed- 
ding or  a  circus.  When  we  got  out  to  sea  we  struck  into  a 
Mediterranean  squall,  such  as  sometimes  blows  the  strings  out 
of  a  pair  of  laced  gaiters,  or  shaves  the  hair  from  the  back  of  a 
bull  dog.  Those  passengers  went  below  to  study  the  interior 
construction  of  the  ship.  Among  them  was  an  Englishman, 
who  told  me  he  had  made  four  voyages  to  China,  and  hadn't 
been  seasick  since  he  was  a  boy.  1  was  the  only  passenger  that 
didn't  go  below,  and  I  eat  my  dinner  alone  and  with  an  appetite 
that  would  terrify  the  keeper  of  a  boarding  house.  My  English 
friend  was  much  disordered  about  the  stomach,  and  when  we  got 
to  Genoa  it  was  all  he  could  do  to  get  himself  on  shore.  I  took 
care  of  his  wife  and  carried  her  down  the  gangAvay  and  up  again 
on  shore,  and  was  as  polite  as  I  knew  how,  and  it  was  entire  dis- 
interestedness on  my  part,  as  I  had  never  met  her  before,  and 
her  husband  was  a  big  fellow  who  could  fight  if  he  wanted  to, 


240  GETTING    A    PAIR    OF    SEA-LEGS. 

and,  moreover,  seasickness  had  given  her  a  bedraggled  appear- 
ance that  was  not  calculated  to  incite  love  making  to  any  alarm- 
ing extent. 

She  looked  as  though  somebody  had  run  her  through  a  patent 
clothes  wringer  and  forgotten  to  shake  her  out  afterwards. 

As  soon  as  the  Wien  had  left  the  harbor  of  Syra  and  got  out 
to  sea,  she  tossed  about  in  a  very  lively  way,  and  it  was  no  joke 
to  walk  along  her  deck  without  falling.  One  needed  to  have  as 
many  legs  as  a  spider  or  a  caterpillar  to  keep  himself  straight, 
and  when  you  were  below  deck,  the  creaking  of  the  timbers  was 
something  surprising. 

"  As  long  as  she  creaks  she  holds,"  is  an  old  maxim  of  the  mar- 
iners, and  if  it  be  true,  there  was  never  a  holdinger  ship  than  the 
Wie7i. 

We  passed  Samos  and  Naxos  and  other  islands  of  the  .^gean 
Sea,  and  when  the  moon  came  out  I  propped  and  chocked  myself 
into  a  corner  on  deck,  and  devoted  the  time  to  thinking  about  the 
siege  of  Troy  and  a  dozen  other  things  connected  with  the  his- 
tory of  Greece. 

Particularly  did  I  think  of  the  gold  and  silver  things  I  had  seen 
in  Dr.  Schliemann's  collection  at  Athens,  things  that  were  said 
to  have  come  from  the  treasury  chest  of  old  King  Priam,  the  same 
venerable  oyster  that  fought  Agamemnon  and  the  other  Kings 
of  Greece. 

They  are  dead  now,  every  mother's  son  of  them,  and  it  was  a 
pleasure  while  looking  at  Priam's  personal  property,  to  know  "  that 
the  old  fellow  couldn't  come  in  to  carry  it  off,  and  that  no  wan- 
dering heir"  could  set  up  a  Tichbome  claim  to  it.  I  read  a  great 
deal  about  Priam  when  I  went  to  school ;  a  man  named  Homer 
wrote  something  about  him,  and  I  got  up  quite  an  interest  in 
Priam,  and  particularly  in  a  young  lady  that  they  called  Helen. 
Because  somebody  stole,  or,  as  the  pickpockets  say,  "raised" 
Helen,  Troy  was  besieged  and  destroyed  with  all  its  palaces  and 
other  good  houses.  * 

We  reached  Smyrna  about  noon  the  day  after  leaving  Syra, 
and  found  the  Tibre  at  anchor.  There  was  a  delay  in  leaving 
the  Wien,  a  vexatious  delay,  of  nearly  an  hour,  just  when  time 
was  very  precious.     The  formalities  of  the  Turkish  ports  are  not 


SWEARING    IN    ALL    LANGUAGES. 


241 


to  be  gone  through  in  a  hurry,  as  we  found  to  our  cost.  The 
doctor  of  the  ship  was  rowed  off  to  the  health  office  to  report 
everything  correct.  Then  the  Doctor  of  the  Port,  a  Turkish  offi- 
cial, with  a  good  deal  of  bombast  about  him,  was  rowed  out  in 
his  boat.  The  crew  of  the  Wien  was  ordered  to  form  in  line  at 
the  ship's  side,  where  the  Doctor  could  see  them.  He  surveyed 
them  as  carefully  as  he  could  at  a  distance  of  twenty  feet,  and 
without  coming  on  board  he  pronounced  the  ship  all  right,  and 
admitted  her  to  pratique.  And  then  what  a  scramble  among 
the  boatmen,  and  what  a  scene  of  confusion ! 


INSPECTING   THE   CREW. 


There  was  shouting  in  all  the  languages  of  the  Levant,  and 
there  was  an  amount  of  crowding  and  pushing  that  ought  to  have 
thrown  half  of  the  boatmen  into  the  water.  They  swore  at  each 
other,  or  at  least  the  accent  of  what  they  said  was  very  much  like 
the  accent  of  swearing  in  other  lands,  and  they  clambered  up  the 
sides  of  the  ship  like  so  many  monkeys.  We  had  taken  time  by 
the  forelock  by  engaging  a  boatman  and  closing  a  bargain  with 
him  while  waiting  ior  pratique,  as  we  thought  it  would  save  a  few 
minutes,  and  was  easier  to  do  when  the  boats  and  men  were  ten 
or  fifteen  yards  distant,  than  when  the  latter  were  crowding  the 


242  "selling"  a  customs-inspector. 

deck.     We  were  to  be  taken  to  the  Tibre  with  our  baggage,  then 
to  shore,  and  then  back  to  the  Tibre  again  for  a  franc  each. 

On  our  way  to  the  Tibre  we  were  intercepted  by  a  boat  of  the 
Custom  House  ;  the  official  was  smoking  his  pipe  in  the  rear  of 
his  craft,  and  just  gave  a  glance  at  our  baggage,  as  if  to  note  the 
number  of  pieces  ;  he  then  extended  his  hand  and  pronounced 
the  word  "backsheesh!" 

I,  as  paymaster  of  the  party,  gave  him  a  franc,  he  waved  his 
hand  to  indicate  that  we  were  a  numerous  party  and  were  liber- 
ally supplied  with  baggage.  I  added  a  franc,  he  nodded  assent 
as  his  fingers  closed  on  it,  and  the  "formalites  de  la  doiiane' 
were  finished. 

I  unhesitatingly  assert  that  the  Orient  has  the  most  pleasing 
Custom  House  arrangements  I  have  ever  seen.  No  trouble,  no 
overhauling  of  baggage,  no  exhibition  of  your  unwashed  linen  to 
a  crowd  of  staring  idlers,  and  no  rumaging  around  generally  in 
the  places  you  desire  should  not  be  rumaged  at  all.  A  little 
"backsheesh"  to  the  official  and  everything  is  satisfactory. 

In  Liverpool  or  New  York,  and  likewise  on  the  continent,  you 
can  sometimes  buy  your  way  through,  but  you  often  hit  the 
wrong  man,  and  then  there  is  a  row.  You  may  attempt  to  bribe 
an  honest  man,  (generally  a  very  newly  appointed  official,)  and 
then  you  come  off  badly.  In  Turkey  you  cannot  make  any  such 
mistake,  as  the  whole  Custom  House  staff  is  on  the  make,  and 
will  take  your  bribes  without  hesitation. 

I  observe  with  pleasure,  that  our  officials  in  America  are  learn- 
ing something  from  the  sleepy  Orientals. 

On  my  last  trip  home  one  of  my  fellow  passengers  had  a  lot  of 
stuff  that  was  liable  to  duty,  and  he  determined  to  get  it  through, 
if  possible,  free  of  charge.  So  he  packed  his  trunk,  putting  these 
things  on  the  bottom  and  a  lot  of  old  clothes  on  top.  Then  he 
spread  open  a  ten  dollar  greenback  and  laid  it  upon  the  old 
clothes,  slightly  securing  it  with  a  pin.  When  his  trunk  was 
opened  for  examination  my  friend  turned  away  so  that  the  in- 
spector might  not  be  troubled  with  his  presence. 

The  examination  lasted  about  a  quarter  of  a  minute.  The  in- 
spector closed  the  trunk  with  the  remark  that  such  a  lot  of  old 
clothes  wasn't  worth  carrying  around;  the  passenger  departed 


"  DOING  "    SMYRNA. 


243 


for  his  hotel  and  when  there  and  in  the  silence  and  solitude  of 
his  room  he  opened  the  trunk. 

And  behold,  the  pin  that  held  the  greenback  was  gone  ! 

And  the  greenback  was  gone  likewise  ! 

What  became  of  that  greenback  my  friend  never  knew.  He 
suggests  that  the  pin,  being  of  English  manufacture,  was  liable 
to  confiscation  and  the  officer  only  did  his  duty  in  seizing  it.  In 
the  hurry  of  removing  the  pin  the  greenback  may  have  adhered 
to  it  and  passed  into  the  pocket  of  the  officer  without  attracting 
his  attention.  When  he 
emptied  his  pockets  that 
night  he  was  doubtless  as- 
tonished  at  finding  the 
greenback,  and  still  more 
when  he  examined  it  and 
found  that  it  was  counter- 
feit. 

We  had  less  than  two 
hours  on  shore,  and  there- 
fore  saw  very  little  of 
Smyrna.  We  walked  or 
rather  ran  through  the 
bazaars,  not  stopping  to 
buy  any  anything,  but 
threading  our  way  among 
Turks,  Arabs,  Levantines, 
camels,    donkeys,    boxes,         ,,  „    ,^ 

■'  BAD  "backsheesh." — "  IT  W.\S  COUNTERFEIT." 

bales,    filth,  and    other 

Oriental  things.  The  pavements  were  rough,  and  in  many  places 
they  were  muddy  and  slippery,  and  by  the  time  we  got  back  to  the 
landing  we  were  thoroughly  tired. 

It  had  been  our  intention  to  make  a  journey  to  the  ruins  of 
Ephesus  during  the  two  days'  stay  of  the  Tibrc,  but  this  was  out 
of  the  question. 

Though  Smyrna  has  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  commerce  for 

a  very  long  time,  there  is  still  a  great  deal  of  prejudice  among 

her  people.     Here  is  a  story  which  was  told  me  in  illustration  of 

this  assertion : 

16 


244  ^    CURIOUS    TRADITION. 

Some  years  ago,  an  English  merchant  sent  a  cargo  of  goods 
to  Smyrna,  and  among  the  articles  were  a  hundred  pigs  of  block 
tin.  The  rest  of  the  cargo  passed  the  custom  house  without 
trouble,  but  the  tin  could  not  be  landed,  and  the  ship,  at  its 
departure,  brought  the  metal  away. 

And  why  ? 

Because  of  the  trade  mark  upon  it.  The  smelters  of  this  par- 
ticular lot  had  adopted  the  figure  of  a  lamb  as  their  trade-mark, 
and  stamped  it  on  each  piece  of  tin.  It  happened  that  when  the 
Crusaders  went  to  Asia  Minor,  the  banners  of  some  of  the  di- 
visions of  their  army  were  ornamented  with  the  picture  of  a  lamb. 
Consequently,  the  lamb  became  unpopular,  and  has  continued  so 
to  this  day. 

The  tin  in  question  was  re-cast  without  the  representation 
of  the  hated  animal,  and  sent  again  to  Smyrna,  where  it  was 
received  without  hesitation. 

It  was  a  great  disappointment  to  us  that  we  could  not  go  to 
Ephesus,  the  seat  of  one  of  the  "  seven  churches  of  Asia,"  and  a 
place  of  great  historical  interest.  A  railway  runs  there  from 
Smyrna,  so  that  the  journey  can  be  made  with  comparative  ease. 
There  is  a  considerable  amount  of  walking  and  donkey-riding 
after  one  gets  there,  and  the  accommodations  are  not  altogether 
palatial.  Ephesus  was  one  of  the  cities  which  claimed  the  honor 
of  being  the  birth-place  of  Homer,  and  it  had  a  reputatian  for  a 
variety  of  things  that  do  it  very  little  good  now.  The  greatest 
lion  of  Ephesus  was  the  Temple  of  Diana,  which  was  accounted 
one  of  the  seven  wonders  of  the  world  ;  Diana  was  accounted 
nearly  as  great  a  wonder,  in  some  respects,  but  she  would  be  of 
very  little  consequence  at  the  present  time. 

The  temple  at  Ephesus  was  said  to  be  four  hundred  and  twen- 
ty-five feet  long  by  half  that  distance  in  width.  Its  roof  was 
supported  by  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight  columns,  each  sixty 
feet  high,  and  altogether  the  edifice  was  the  largest  of  all  the 
Greek  temples,  as  it  occupied  four  times  the  area  of  the  Parthe- 
non. Like  the  latter  temple,  it  contained  a  statue  of  gold  and 
ivory,  and  there  was  a  vast  amount  of  wealth  about  the  building. 
The  roof  was  set  on  fire  one  night  by  an  incendiary  named 
Erostratus,  (whether  John,  Charles,  or  William,  I  am  unable  to 


A    CITY    OF    SCOUNDRELS. 


245 


say,)  who  lost  his  head  in  consequence.  He  died  happy,  and 
avowed  that  he  had  no  other  object  than  to  immortalize  his 
name.     Hence  came  the  declaration — 

"  The  daring  youth  that  fired  th'  Ephesian  dome, 
Outlives  in  fame  the  pious  fool  who  raised  it." 

The  city  and  temple  disappeared  during  the  Middle  ages,  and 
at  the  beginning  of  the  present  century  the  site  was  marked 
only  by  heaps  of  rubbish,  and  by  the  Turkish  village  of  Aya 
Soolook. 

In  the  past  twenty  years,  excavations  have  been  made  there  at 
various  times,  and  are  still  going  on.  The  foundations  of  the 
temple  have  been  discovered,  and  many  interesting  sculptures 
brought  to  light. 

Ephesus  at  one  time  granted  the  right  of  asylum,  and  was 
known  as  a  city  of  refuge. 

Any  scoundrel  who  had  offended  the  laws  and  found  things 
too  hot  for  him  at  home,  was  all  right  in  Ephesus  ;  and  the 
result  was  that  the  city  was  overrun  with  criminals  to  such  an 
extent,  that  the  respectable  inhabitants  asked  the  Emperor  Au- 
gustus to  abolish  this  right  of  asylum,  which  he  did.  Society 
was  in  the  condition  of  that  of  Texas  before  her  admission  to  the 
Union,  and  before  she  had  any  laws  to  keep  rascals  in  check. 

There  used  to  be  a  couplet,  to  which  our  most  South-western 
State  was  said  to  owe  its  name  : 

"  When  every  other  land  rejects  us, 
This  is  the  land  that  freely  takes  us." 

Possibly  the  thieves,  murderers,  bounty-jumpers,  and  Tam- 
many officials  of  the  olden  time  used  to  say: 

"  When  law  from  the  land  would  efface  us. 
We'll  pack  up  our  trunks  for  Ephesus." 

Neat,  isn't  it .?  Well,  the  Judge  got  that  up  just  as  we  were 
sailing  out  of  Smyrna. 

We  were  on  board  the  Tibre  half  an  hour  before  her  time  of 
sailing.  As  we  steamed  out  of  the  harbor,  and  the  lovely  bay  on 
which  the  city  stands,  we  had  a  most  beautiful  sunset,  full  of 


246  LAST    VIEW    OF    SMYRNA. 

bright  colors,  in  strong  contrast  to  the  dark  and  rugged  hills  that 
form  the  setting  of  the  bay.  The  general  features  of  Smyrna 
are  not  unlike  those  of  Naples,  when  looked  at  from  a  distance 
of  half  a  dozen  miles.  The  harbor  is  one  of  the  safest  along  this 
whole  coast,  and  its  trade  appears  to  be  quite  prosperous.  There 
is  much  wealth  at  Smyrna,  and  a  great  many  foreigners  are  set- 
tled there  in  business.  The  population  is  estimated  at  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand,  of  which  the  Turks  and  Arabs  number 
a  little  more  than  half.  Then  there  are  forty  thousand  Greeks 
and  Italians,  fifteen  thousand  Jews,  ten  thousand  Armenians,  and 
about  five  thousand  Europeans  of  various  nationalities.  There 
are  mosques,  churches,  and  synagogues  among  the  places  of 
worship,  and  the  commercial  character  of  the  population  imbues 
them  with  a  great  deal  of  liberality  in  religious  matters. 

A  splendid  quay  was  in  course  of  construction  at  the  time  of 
my  visit,  and  when  it  is  finished  the  maritime  importance  of 
Smyrna  will  be  greatly  increased.  The  stone  for  this  quay  was 
made  on  the  spot,  from  the  sand  of  the  harbor,  in  the  same  way 
as  the  artificial  stone  that  forms  the  breakwater  at  Port  Said,  in 
Egypt. 

There  are  three  lines  of  steamers  engaged  in  the  coasting 
trade  of  Syria  and  Palestine — the  French,  the  Austrian,  and  the 
Russian.  The  French  steamers  run  each  way  every  fifteen 
days,  the  Russian  every  two  weeks,  and  the  Austrian  three 
times  a  month.  They  touch  at  most  of  the  ports,  and  make  their 
voyages  very  leisurely.  As  a  general ,  thing,  they  run  from  one 
port  to  the  next  in  the  night,  and  rest  there  during  the  day. 
Take  our  steamer  for  an  illustration. 

She  left  Smyrna  just  before  sunset ;  at  noon  next  day  she  was 
at  Rhodes,  where  she  lay  till  sunset,  and  then  moved  on.  At 
breakfast  next  day  she  was  at  Messina,  and  staid  there  till  night, 
and  so  it  went  on,  past  Alexandretta  (the  port  of  Aleppo),  Lat- 
akia,  Tripoli,  and  Beyrout.  It  was  a  very  pleasant  way  of  mak- 
ing the  journey,  as  we  were  at  sea  during  the  night,  and  could 
spend  the  day  on  shore,  each  time  at  a  new  place.  The  routes  of 
the  different  lines  vary  somewhat,  but  all  of  them  touch  at  Bey- 
rout and  Jaffa. 

We  went  on  shore  at  Rhodes,  and  wandered  among  its  palm 
trees,  over  its  curious  walls,  and  up  the  famous   street  of  the 


THE    COLOSSUS    OF    RHODES.  24/ 

knights,  where  the  armorial  emblems  over  the  doors  are  still  in 
place,  left  there  by  the  Turkish  conquerors  in  honor  of  the  Knights 
of  St.  John,  and  their  gallant  defense  of  the  place  before  their 
surrender.  The  defence  of  Rhodes  forms  one  of  the  brightest 
pages  of  history,  a  page  that  should  never  be  soiled  and  never  be 
effaced.  The  site  of  the  Colossus  of  Rhodes  was  pointed  out; 
it  was  on  one  of  the  bends  of  the  land  that  form  the  harbor  ;  the 
story  that  it  stood  across  the  entrance,  and  that  ships  sailed  be- 
tween its  legs,  is  a  beautiful  fiction,  more  astonishing  than  true. 

There  are  few  places  in  Europe  that  have  such  a  mediaeval  ap- 
pearance as  this  city  of  Rhodes ;  its  walls  and  towers,  and  the 
ancient  appearance  of  its  houses,  carry  the  visitor  half  a  dozen 
centuries  backward  more  easily  than  do  most  places  in  the  track 
of  the  tourist.  And  the  life  there  had  a  lazy,  careless  way  about 
it,  quite  in  keeping  with  the  mural  structures.  People  were  loung- 
ing at  the  water's  edge,  some  in  the  cafes,  and  some  under  the 
palm  trees  in  front  of  them.  Nobody  was  in  a  hurry  about  any- 
thing, and  even  the  servants  of  the  cafes  had  caught  the  conta- 
gion, and  moved  around  as  listlessly  as  though  they  had  been  ap- 
pointed to  their  own  executions,  and  were  trying  to  make  as  much 
delay  as  possible.  There  was  little  rivalry  among  the  boatmen, 
and  they  good  natnredly  assisted  each  other  in  getting  to  or  from 
the  little  dock  where  we  landed. 

Rhodes  is  the  ancient  Rhodes  (a  rose),  and  the  name  belongs 
both  to  the  island  and  the  city.  The  latter  has  a  population  of 
about  ten  thousand,  and  of  these  there  are  six  thousand  Turks, 
while  the  rest  are  Jews  and  Greeks.  The  city  is  built  in 
the  form  of  an  amphitheatre,  upon  the  bay  that  makes  the 
harbor,  but  unfortunately  the  depth  of  water  is  not  .  sufficient 
to  afford  anchorage  for  ocean  going  steamers.  It  was  a  warm, 
still,  clear  afternoon  when  we  were  there,  and  the  town  as 
we  approached  it  had  a  very  quiet  and  lazy  appearance.  The 
walls  and  towers,  the  work  of  the  Knights  of  St  John,  carried  us 
back  to  the  middle  ages,  and  it  seemed  as  if  Rhodes  had  gone  to 
sleep  half  a  millennium  ago  and  nobody  had  disturbed  her  since 
Strabo  described  the  ancient  city  of  Rhodes  as  a  place  of  great 
magnificence,  with  many  public  edifices  that  were  profusely 
adorned  with  works  of  art.     There  were  said  to  have  been  three 


248  A    QUAINT    OLD    CITY. 

thousand  statues  in  the  city,  and  altogether  it  must  have  been  a 
wonderful  place.  At  present  there  are  few  remains  of  anything 
prior  to  the  occupation  by  the  Knights  of  St.  John  in  the  early 
part  of  the  fourteenth  century. 

One  of  the  brightest  pages  in  the  history  of  the  Crusades 
and  the  events  connected  with  them,  is  that  whereon  is  written 
the  chronicles  of  the  Knights  of  St.  John.  At  the  time  of 
the  first  crusade  the  institution  was  in  high  favor  with  the 
crusaders,  many  of  whom  joined  it  and  bestowed  their  fortunes 
upon  it.  Up  to  that  time  it  had  been  merely  a  secular  in- 
stitution, but  its  chief  determined  to  organize  it  as  a  religious 
body  whose  members  took  the  vows  of  obedience,  chastity,  and 
poverty,  and  were  to  devote  their  lives  to  the  aid  of  the  poor  and 
sick  in  the  Latin  kingdom  of  Jerusalem. 

In  the  twelfth  century  the  institution  added  another  vow  to 
those  above  mentioned, — that  of  bearing  arms  in  defense  of  re- 
ligion. The  order  thus  assumed  a  military  character  and  rapidly 
rose  in  wealth  and  power.  In  some  of  the  Saracenic  wars  the 
knights  performed  deeds  of  great  valor,  and  several  battles  were 
won  by  them.  In  the  thirteenth  century  they  were  driven  from 
the  Holy  Land,  in  consequence  of  the  reverses  suffered  by  the 
crusaders,  particularly  in  the  battle  near  St.  Jean  d'  Acre.  After 
this  they  established  themselves  at  Cypress.  Here  they  assumed 
a  naval  character,  as  their  ships  carried  pilgrims  to  and  frorn  the 
Holy  Land,  and  had  frequent  sea  fights  with  the  Turks.  In 
A.  D.  1309  they  seized  Rhodes,  which  had  been  a  resort  of 
Moslem  pirates,  and  fortified  it  in  the  manner  we  see  it  at  the 
present  day.  They  were  several  times  assailed  by  the  Turks,  but 
repulsed  every  assault  and  made  several  expeditions  into  Asia 
Minor.  Their  numbers  were  steadily  recruited  from  the  no- 
bility of  Europe,  and  one  time  nearly  all  the  best  families  of 
France,  Spain,  and  Italy  were  represented  among  the  Knights  of 
St.  John.  In  A.  D.  1522  the  Sultan  Solyman  the  Magnificent, 
besieged  them  with  an  army  twenty  thousand  strong ;  they  held 
out  for  six  months — their  whole  strength  was  less  than  six 
thousand  men — they  were  at  length  forced  to  surrender.  But 
their  defence  had  been  so  heroic  that  the  Turks  allowed  them  to 
retire  with  the  honors  of  war,  carrying  their  arms  and  standards 


EXPLOITS    OF    THE    KNIGHTS    OF    ST.   JOHN. 


251 


and  even  some  of  their  cannon.  The  Turkish  fleet  dipped  its 
flags  and  fired  a  salute,  as  the  Knights  with  tearful  eyes  sailed 
away  from  the  island  which  their  order  had  held  for  more  than 
two  centuries.  It  is  recorded  that  the  commander,  Phillipe  de 
r  Isle  Adam,  was  the  last  to  leave  the  island  and  that  he  turned 
and  kissed  his  hand  toward  Rhodes  as  his  ship  sailed  away.  The 
trumpet  that  was  blown  at  Rhodes  to  give  the  signal  of  the  re- 
tirement of  the  Knights  is  preserved  at  Malta,  and  I  had  the 
pleasure  of  examining  it  several  months  after  my  visit  to  the 
scene  of  the  heroic  defence.  After  temporary  sojourns  in 
Candia,  Sicily,  and  Italy,  the  Knights,  in  A.  D.  1530,  were 
established  at  Malta  where  they  built  a  strong  fortress  which 
resisted  several  sieges  by  the  Turks.  They  remained  at  Malta 
until  1798,  when  Napoleon,  on  his  way  to  Egypt,  seized  the 
Island  and  virtually  put  an  end  to  the  existence  of  the  order. 


i?^^ 


CHAPTER     XVIII. 


SYRIA,  THE  LAND  OF  THE  SUN.— DRAGOMEN,  GUIDES,  AND 

COURIERS. 

A  Rough  Night  on  Shipboard — A  Sea-sick  Turk — What  he  said— Rum  and  Petro- 
leum— Meditations  on  Turkish  Hash — The  Camel,  his  tricks  and  uses — A  Know- 
ing Brute — How  he  shirks  a  burden — George  Smith,  the  Assyrian  Savan — 
Beyrout — Its  Antiquities  and  Wonders — Going  on  Shore — The  Dragoman  and 
his  office — Eastern  Guides  and  their  Character — Travelling  on  Horseback  in 
Syria — The  road  to  Damascus — An  unexpected  trouble — Paying  fare  by  Weight — 
Disadvantages  of  a  heavy  "party" — A  trial  of  Wits— Waking  up  the  Judge— 
Tellin J  White  Lies — The  "  Doubter's  "  Predicament. 

IT  grew  rough  in  the  night,  after  we  left  Rhodes,  and  the  Tibre 
tossed  about  in  a  very  lively  way. 

There  was  a  Turk  in  the  state  room  on  one  side  of  me,  and  an 
Armenian  woman  in  the  room  on  the  other  side. 

The  Turk  rolled  about  very  uneasily  ;  the  springs  of  his  bed 
were  rather  noisy,  and  I  could  hear  them  creak  every  time  he 
turned  over.  I  venture  to  say  that  he  turned  in  his  bed  not  far 
from  243,654  times  in  the  night ;  not  that  I  counted  them,  but 
only  guessed.  Every  time  the  ship  gave  a  lurch  he  shouted 
"Allah!"  and  between  times  he  cleared  his  stomach  or  his 
conscience  of  everything  that  had  rested  there  in  the  last  ten 
years. 

As  for  the  Armenienne,  she  took  out  her  share  in  groaning, 
and  she  did  that  so  well  as  to  entitle  her  to  the  first  place  at  an 
Irish  wake.  Had  she  asked  me  for  a  diploma,  I  could  have  given 
her  one  that  would  have  made  her  fortune,  but  she  didn't  put  in 
an  appearance  till  she  came  out  to  leave  the  ship  at  Alexan- 

(252 


RUM    AND    PETROLEUM.  253 

dretta.  She  wanted  to  say  her  prayers,  but  was  too  weak  to  do 
so,  though  she  shouted  "  Constantine"  as  often  as  the  Turk  said 
"Allah."  As  for  the  Turk,  he  stuck  to  his  employment  with 
most  commendable  zeal.  Between  the  two,  I  didn't  get  much 
sleep  during  the  night,  and  was  glad  when  morning  came  and  the 
steamer  anchored  at  Mersina. 

It  was  too  rough  to  go  on  shore  with  comfort,  and  there  was 
nothing  to  see  after  getting  there,  as  the  place  is  small  and  has 
no  special  distinguishing  features. 

Next  morning  we  were  at  Alexandretta,  the  port  of  Aleppo, 
and  there  we  went  on  shore. 

Almost  the  first  object  that  caught  my  eye,  as  I  stepped  on 
shore,  was  a  barrel  of  New  England  rum,  with  the  name  of  the 
Boston  manufacturer  carefully  stencilled  on  its  head.  In  nearly 
every  part  of  the  world  where  I  have  been,  I  have  found  that  the 
enterprise  of  Massachusetts  has  sent  its  rum,  a  harbinger  of  civ- 
ilization, that  must  puzzle  the  heathen  in  their  efforts  to  under- 
stand the  principles  of  Christianity.  A  barrel  of  petroleum  was 
just  beyond  it,  another  bearer  of  light  from  the  New  World  to  the 
nations  wrapped  in  darkness. 

Our  poetic  fancies,  on  the  juxtaposition  of  these  gifts  of 
America  to  the  old  world,  were  cut  short  by  our  entrance  to  the 
bazaars,  a  series  of  low  sheds  with  a  street  between  them,  little 
more  than  a  couple  of  yards  wide.  Merchants  were  squatted  in 
their  shops,  with  their  goods  piled  all  round  them  ;  shop,  goods, 
and  merchant,  all  included,  rarely  occupied  a  space  more  than 
eight  feet  square.  • 

The  official  known  in  American  stores  as  a  floor-walker  would 
be  entirely  superfluous  here  ;  he  might  as  well  try  to  walk  in  the 
cage  of  a  canary  bird  as  in  an  Oriental  shop. 

The  customer  stands  in  the  street,  or  sits  on  the  low  bench 
that  forms  the  front  of  the  shop  ;  a  party  as  large  as  ours — half- 
a-dozen — blocked  the  street  and  made  it  inconvenient  for  others 
to  get  around  or  for  ourselves  to  see  anything.  Then  there  were 
camels,  dogs,  and  donkeys  moving  about,  and  you  had  to  look 
sharp  to  prevent  being  run  over. 

There  was  a  restaurant  a  little  larger  than  the  rest  of  the 
shops,  but  still  very  small ;  and  there  was  a  butcher's  shop,  where 


254 


TRICKS    OF    A    CAMEL. 


a  couple  of  men,  with  large  knives,  were  making  mutton-hash 
for  native  consumption.  The  hash  was  rolled  around  on  a  large 
block,  and  cut  with  knives  at  every  turn,  and  frequently  the  knife 
came  so  near  the  fingers  of  the  operator  as  to  endanger  them. 
With  ordinary  carelessness,  there  ought  to  be  about  two  per  cent, 
of  fingers  in  a  lot  of  hash  after  its  preparation  is  complete. 

Outside  the  town  we  visited  a  group  of  camels.  These 
patient  beasts  have  a  dingy  hide,  with  thin  hair,  and  their 
appearance   is   so   ungainly  that    I  should  think  they  would  be 

^ ashamed     of 

themselves.  I 
would  give 
something  to 
know  what  is  a 
camel's  idea  of 
beauty ;  it  must 
be  something 
quite  out  of  the 
ordinary  run. 
A  little  distance 
away,  they  re- 
semble large 
turkeys,  and, 
with  heads 
stretched  out 
when  they  trot, 

you  would  take  them  for  the  aforesaid  turk'eys  hunting  after 
grasshoppers.  A  lot  of  the  beasts  were  being  loaded  for  the  in- 
terior, and  I  was  interested  in  watching  the  operation. 

The  camel  is  made  to  kneel,  and  then  a  quantity  of  old  blan- 
kets is  spread  on  his  hump,  on  which  to  place  the  saddle.  This 
is  formed  of  a  few  sticks  joined  together,  much  like  the  ordinary 
mule  saddle,  only  somewhat  larger.  The  freight  to  be  carried  is 
fastened  to  this  saddle  by  means  of  ropes,  and  the  Arabs  have  a 
very  keen  eye  for  balancing  the  boxes  and  barrels  that  make  up 
a  camel's  load.  My  pity  was  roused  for  a  camel  that  made  half- 
a-dozen  ineffectual  efforts  to  rise  after  he  was  loaded,  and  was 
only  brought  to  his  feet  by  the  assistance  of  one  man  pounding 


A  TRICKY   BEAST. 


A   CARAVAN    TO    NINEVEH.  255 

him  and  three  others  hfting  at  the  load.  But  a  gentleman  of  our 
party  was  familiar  with  the  camel,  and  said  : 

"  The  chances  are  two  to  one  that  the  distress  of  the  beast  is 
a  sham.  They  are  up  to  all  that  sort  of  trick  when  being  loaded, 
as  they  sometimes  secure  a  diminution  of  their  cargoes  by  play- 
ing it  sharp.  I  have  seen  an  old  camel  sold  by  putting  a  lot  of 
empty  boxes  on  him.  They  weighed  very  little,  and  yet  he  tried 
half-a-dozen  times  to  rise,  and  couldn't,  until  he  was  cudgeled. 
The  whining  and  groaning  of  the  camel  is  a  good  deal  of  a 
fraud.  You  have  seen  western  pack-mules  in  America  do  the 
same  thing." 

Sagacious  beast  the  camel ! 

If  the  Hindostanee  doctrine  of  metempsychosis  is  correct,  I 
wonder  what  sort  of  spirits  enter  the  bodies  of  .the  ship  of  the 
desert .'' 

We  saw  the  camel-train  move  out  on  the  road  to  Aleppo, 
ninety  miles  distant,  and  we  walked  a  mile  or  so  upon  the  road. 
Two  passengers  who  were  bound  for  Nineveh  and  Bagdad,  on 
the  Euphrates,  left  us  here,  and  we  saw  them  off  on  their  jour- 
ney. One  of  them  was  Mr.  George  Smith,  who  was  making  re- 
searches at  Nineveh  for  the  British  Museum  and  the  London 
Daily  Telegraph  conjointly. 

He  expected  to  be  twenty-five  days  making  the  journey  to 
Nineveh,  and  said  it  was  possible  that  bad  weather  might  make 
his  route  somewhat  longer.  He  made  some  valuable  discoveries 
in  his  first  explorations  there,  and  hoped  to  make  many  more. 
I  am  sure  all  the  passengers  of  the  Tibre  wished  him  every  pos- 
sible success. 

While  I  am  writing  these  pages,  his  book  on  his  explorations 
has  been  published  in  London,  and  is  receiving  the  praises  of  the 
scientific  world. 

Camels  and  palm  trees,  ancient  ruins,  stray  dogs,  Arabs,  water- 
pots,  and  other  things,  gave  the  road  to  Aleppo  an  Oriental  ap- 
pearance, and  the  temptation  to  push  forward  to  the  great  desert 
and  away  to  the  eastward  was  by  no  means  a  light  one.  But 
this  was  not  to  be  undertaken  ;  we  returned  to  the  steamer,  and 
were  borne  away  towards  Beyrout,  where,  three  days  later,  after 
stopping  at  two  unimportant  points,  we  landed  and  set  our  faces 
toward  Damascus. 


256  MT.  LEBANON,  FROM  BEYROUT. 

Beyrout  presents  a  pretty  appearance  from  the  water.  The 
land  on  either  side  sweeps  gracefully  around  to  form  a  bay,  and 
at  the  end  of  this  bay  the  city  is  nestled.  Back  of  it  is  the 
famous  Mount  Lebanon,  from  which  were  brought  the  cedars 
used  in  the  construction  of  the  Temple  at  Jerusalem ;  the  sides 
of  the  mountain  are  steep,  but  not  precipitous,  and  the  summit  is 
frequently  covered  with  clouds. 

Seen  from  the  city,  the  mountain  has  a  bleak,  barren  appear- 
ance, owing  to  the  masses  of  white  limestone  cropping  out  at 
frequent  intervals  and  reflecting  the  sunlight  to  such  an  extent 
as  to  give  it  the  name  by  which  it  is  known,  "  the  White  Moun- 
tain." The  sides  of  the  mountain  are  cultivated  in  terraces,  and 
the  front  walls  of  these  terraces  frequently  consist  of  the  solid 
limestone  rocks.  As  one  looks  up  the  mountain,  he  sees  only 
the  faces  of  these  terraces,  the  verdure  which  they  sustain  being 
out  of  sight. 

The  old  town  of  Beyrout  is  very  old,  and  its  streets  are  narrow 
and  very  often  rough  and  dirty.  The  new  town,  or  rather  the 
new  part  of  the  town,  has  wide  streets  and  is  sufficiently  well 
paved  to  allow  carriages  and  carts  to  move  about ;  the  pavement 
is  excellent  for  Syria,  but  would  have  been  considered  very  poor 
in  an  American  city.  The  population  is  now  about  sixty  thou- 
sand, which  is  three  times  what  it  was  thirty  years  ago ;  it  is  a 
mixed  population  of  Moslems,  Christians,  and  Jews — about  as 
mixed  as  that  of  Constantinople  or  Cairo.  Business  is  active, 
and  the  city  has  a  very  pronounced  air  of  prosperity. 

Antiquities  and  curious  sights  for  the  ordinary  tourist  are  few 
in  number  and  not  very  interesting.  There  are  Roman,  Assy- 
rian, and  Arabic  remains,  in  the  shape  of  tablets  sculptured  on 
the  rocky  walls  of  the  Nahr-el-Kelb  or  Dog  River,  about  half  an 
hour's  drive  from  Beyrout ;  and  there  are  a  few  traces  in  the 
town  itself  of  the  Roman  occupation.  All  of  them  can  be  seen 
in  a  short  time,  and  to  a  stranger  who  has  come  straight  from 
America,  without  stopping,  they  would  doubtless  be  interesting. 
But  where  you  have  done  Rome  and  Athens,  and  half  the  cities 
of  Europe  and  Asia,  you  won't  linger  long  over  the  antiquities  of 
Beyrout. 

But  all  this  time,  while  I  have  been  droning  about  Beyrout  and 
Mount  Lebanon,  I  have  kept  you  waiting  at  the  gangway  of  the 


GUIDES    rs.    DRAGOMEN.  259 

Steamer.  Well,  you  have  the  consolation  of  knowing  that  you 
have  put  in  the  time  while  waiting  for  the  ship  to  undergo  the 
quarantine  formalities  and  obtain  pratique. 

A  crowd  of  dragomen  and  guides  invaded  the  steamer  as  soon 
as  they  had  permission  to  come  on  board,  and  were  very  ener- 
getic in  endeavors  to  secure  our  patronage.  They  presented  cre- 
dentials that, would  have  entitled  them  to  anything  short  of  can- 
onization, and  to  read  their  credentials  you  would  consider  them 
the  best  and  most  honest  men  in  the  world. 

We  selected  the  guide  belonging  to  the  hotel  which  we  had 
determined  to  patronize,  and  repelled  as  best  we  could  all  the 
others,  by  telling  them  we  had  no  need  of  their  services,  and 
should  not  take  them.  We  obtained  a  boat,  with  a  little  bargain- 
ing, and  went  on  shore,  where  a  dense  crowd  of  Arab  porters  were 
in  attendance.  Two  francs  of  "  backsheesh  "  took  us  through 
the  custom  house,  and  we  followed  guides  and  porters  to  the 
hotel,  and  were  followed  by  a  guard  of  honor  of  about  a  dozen 
dragomen,  very  much  as  an  organ-grinder  is  accompanied  by  a 
troop  of  small  boys. 

While  we  were  coming  on  shore  there  was  a  row  between  the 
guide  of  the  hotel,  and  the  dragomen  belonging  to  the  same  es- 
tablishment, in  consequence  of  the  former  trying  to  fasten  him- 
self upon  us,  for  the  journey  to  Damascus,  The  latter  requested 
the  guide  to  stick  to  his  business,  and  imperatively  told  him  to 
mind  his  place  and  keep  it.  Some  of  my  readers  may  ask  the 
difference  between  the  two  positions,  and  for  their  benefit  I  will 
venture  an  explanation. 

A  guide  is  a  necessary  evil  of  European  or  Oriental  travel, 
particularly  the  latter ;  you  can  get  along  in  Europe  without  a 
guide,  unless  you  are  pressed  greatly  for  time  and  want  to  see 
things  in  the  shortest  possible  limit,  but  in  Oriental  cities  you 
will  find  a  guide  indispensable,  at  least  for  the  first  two  or  three 
days  of  your  stay,  until  you  get  the  run  of  the  place.  The 
"  guide"  belongs  to  the  city  and  its  surroundings  ;  he  is  called 
guide  in  the  Orient,  and  valet  de  place  or  covunissionaire  in  Eu- 
rope, In  Europe  he  generally  knows  something  of  the  history  of 
the  city,  where  he  shows  you  about  and  can  tell  you  of  the  curiosi- 
ties, the  date  of  the  construction  of  the  cathedral,  palaces,  etcetera. 


260  "  GOING    IT    BLIND." 

But  in  the  Orient  you  must  not  expect  anything  of  the  kind  ; 
you  must  rely  upon  your  guide  book  for  all  historical  informa- 
tion, and  as  a  general  thing,  must  indicate  to  the  guide  the  differ- 
ent places  you  wish  to  visit.  His  services  generally  consist  in 
taking  you  to  those  places,  and  in  acting  as  your  interpreter.  As 
for  knowledge  beyond  his  day  and  generation  he  has  none.  For 
example,  a  local  guide  in  Venice  will  take  you  to  the  Doge's 
palace,  or  the  church  of  St.  Mark,  and  tell  you  the  date  of  con- 
struction, the  name  of  the  builder,  the  uses  of  each  portion,  and 
will  go  on  step  by  step  till  he  has  delivered  a  sort  of  lyceum  lec- 
ture, which  he  has  carefully  learned,  has  delivered  a  great  many 
times  before  and  expects  to  deliver  as  often  as  he  can  get  an  en- 
gagement for  an  indefinite  number  of  years  to  come.  In  Con- 
stantinople you  wish  to  visit  the  Mosque  of  St.  Sophia  ;  the  guide 
will  get  the  necessary  ticket  and  take  you  there,  and  the  most 
you  can  expect  of  him,  after  you  get  inside,  is  to  tell  you  which  is 
the  floor  and  which  is  the  roof.  Sometimes  he  is  not  equal  even 
to  that  effort  of  intellect. 

In  Europe  there  is  the  travelling  courier  ;  he  is  engaged  by  peo- 
ple willing  to  pay  for  luxuries,  goes  with  them  from  city  to  city, 
looks  after  their  baggage,  makes  most  of  their  bargains,  acts  as 
their  interpreter,  and  frequently  as  a  local  guide,  and  is  supposed 
to  know  the  continent  and  its  belongings  pretty  thoroughly. 

The  dragoman  is  to  the  Orient  what  the  courier  is  to  Europe. 
The  difference  is  caused  by  the  difference  of  the  two  regions. 
In  Europe  you  travel  by  rail  and  steamer  ;  in  the  Orient  there 
are  no  railways,  and  in  all  Syria  and  Palestine,  with  the  exception 
of  the  one  between  Beyrout  and  Damascus,  there  is  not  a  car- 
riage road.  You  must  travel  on  horseback,  must  sleep  in  tents, 
while  between  the  cities,  and  must  have  a  regular  camp  equipage. 

The  dragoman  makes  it  his  business  to  attend  to  all  this.  He 
supplies  your  parties  with  horses,  tents,  food,  and  everything  else 
at  a  fixed  price  per  day,  and  when  in  the  cities  he  supplies  you 
with  a  local  guide,  but  never  acts  as  one  himself.  He  is  to  the 
guide  what  the  horse  is  to  the  donkey,  or  a  general  to  a  captain, 
and  he  frequently  puts  on  airs  enough  to  set  up  a  windmill.  I 
hope  I  have  made  a  clear  enough  explanation  of  the  difference 
between  the  two. 


TRAVELLING    BY    WEIGHT.  26l 

From  Beyrout  to  Damascus  there  is  an  excellent  road,  equal 
to  the  best  turnpikes  of  America,  and  the  diligence  roads  of  Eu- 
rope. It  was  constructed  by  a  French  company  under  a  charter 
or  firman  from  the  Sultan,  and  is  a  triumph  of  engineering  skill. 
Twice  a  day  there  is  a  diligence  each  way  over  the  road  ;  the 
morning  departure  is  at  four  A.  M.,  and  the  evening  at  six  P.  M. 
The  time  from  Beyrout  to  Damascus  fourteen  and  one-half  hours 
and  from  Damascus  to  Beyrout  thirteen  and  one-half,  owing  to 
the  difference  of  elevation. 

We  went  at  once  to  the  office  of  the  company,  where  we  were 
politely  received,  and  after  considerable  talk,  and  an  examination 
of  the  diligences,  we  hired  a  special  carriage,  which  was  to  take 
our  party  of  six  to  Damascus  and  back,  stopping  midway  long 
enough  to  allow  us  to  visit  Baalbek. 

The  entire  cost,  including  the  halt  en  ro-nte,  and  at  Damascus, 
was  about  sixteen  dollars  (gold)  for  each  person,  certainly  not  an 
unreasonable  price.  But  we  came  near  having  to  pay  more,  and 
it  happened  this  way. 

We  conducted  our  negotiations  in  the  outer  office,  and  when 
we  had  settled  the  whole  matter,  paid  the  money  and  received 
the  ticket  there  arose  a  question  about  some  trivial  matter  which 
the  agent  said  he  would  refer  to  the  manager.  The  manager's 
office  was  across  the  hall,  and  as  the  agent  entered  it,  he  beck- 
oned for  us  to  follow.  We  sauntered  in,  one  after  the  other,  and 
on  entering  found  manager  and  agent  settling  the  question  we 
had  raised. 

The  manager  raised  his  eyes  as  we  entered.  They  rested 
upon  us  for  an  instant  and  then  he  started  back  as  though  some- 
body had  drawn  a  revolver  upon  him. 

"  Mon  Dien  f  he  exclaimed,  "  and  is  this  the  party  for  Damas- 
cus .''" 

"  Certainement,  vionsiejir,"  replied  the  agent,  waving  his  hand 
toward  us,  whereat  we  bowed  to  the  manager. 

There  was  the  joortly  form  of  the  judge  in  the  foreground.  He 
weighed  two  hundred  and  thirty  pounds,  avoirdupois,  net,  before 
breakfast,  and  a  great  deal  more  after  a  square  meal. 

Then  came  my  slender  frame  of  six  feet  one,  with  correspond- 
ing breadth  of  beam  and  depth  of  hold. 


262 


INTERVIEWING    THE    MANAGER. 


Gustave  was  as  tall  as  I  but  not  equal  to  me  in  diameter.  He 
happened,  however,  to  be  wearing  one  of  my  overcoats  so  that 
he  bulged  very  respectably. 

Charley  and  the  "Doubter"  were  in  the  rear.  They  were  fair 
to  middling  in  size  but  the  manager  didn't  see  them,  his  eyes  be- 
ing wholly  filled  with  the  foremost  trio,  and  if  he  had  been  a 
young  widow  on  a  hunt  for  a  husband  he  couldn't  have  watched 
us  more  eagerly. 

"  Ah,  Mon  Dieit,  Mon  Dicu  f  continued  the  manager  ;  "  we 
can  never  carry  this  jDarty  on  single  tickets.  And  where  is  the 
sixth  ?" 


'mon    DIEU  !      IS    THIS  THE   PARTY   FOR   DAMASCUS?" 


"  Madame  is  at  the  hotel,"  I  replied,  "  she  is  so  small  that  we 
call  her  the  baby.  You  should  see  her.  Elle  est  tres  petite,  tres 
jolie,  et  ireschai'mante." 

My  endeavor  to  divert  his  attention  by  an  appeal  to  a  French- 
man's admiration  for  a  pretty  woman  (many  persons  not  of 
French  birth  are  troubled  the  same  way)  was  of  no  avail.  He 
measured  our  heavy  trio  and  returned  to  the  charge  by  assert- 
ing : 


DISPOSING    OF    THE   "  DOUBTER."  263 

"It  is  impossible  to  take  you  for  that  price.  We  calculated 
upon  two  horses  for  the  carriage  and  we  must  have  three.  What 
enormous  men  you  are." 

The  judge  now  found  tongue  and  repelled  the  insinuation  that 
he  was  enonne. 

"  You  think  I  am  large,  eh  }  You  should  see  my  partner. 
He  always  rides  in  two  carriages,  and  once  when  he  slipped  on 
the  icy  sidewalk,  the  people  for  half  a  mile  around  thought  it  was 
an  earthquake." 

"  Pardon,  lilonsietir','  I  added,  "  Son  Excellence,  Monsieur  le 
j'uge,''  and  I  waved  my  hand  in  the  direction  of  my  friend,  "  is 
not  as  heavy  as  you  may  think.  He  is  nothing  but  a  big  bag  of 
wind,  as  you  would  find  if  you  should  stick  a  fork  into  him  " 

This  raised  a  laugh  in  which  the  manager  joined.  The  judge 
retorted  on  me  with  a  remark  which  personal  respect  impels  me  to 
keep  back  from  this  narrative.  It  was  sufficient  to  raise  another 
laugh,  and  under  the  diversion  thus  created  we  got  the  manager 
into  good  humor.  We  brought  him  around  all  right,  but  I  firmly 
believe  it  would  have  cost  us  more  if  he  had  seen  us  before  the 
ticket  had  been  paid  for  and  delivered.  As  we  bowed  out  of  the 
room  the  judge  was  in  the  rear  and  caught  the  manager's  remark 
to  the  agent. 

''  Mon  Dietc  !     Us  so7it  enormes.'' 

The  "  Doubter,"  not  knowing  French,  was  standing  by  during 
the  conversation  without  the  faintest  idea  of  what  was  occurring. 
He  looked  on  with  an  expression  similar  to  that  of  a  pig  contem- 
plating a  railway  train,  and  when  we  got  outside  he  asked  what 
it  was  all  about. 

"  Something  very  serious,"  said  the  judge.  "  The  manager 
objected  to  so  much  weight,  and  wanted  you  to  remain  behind. 
We  tried  to  compromise  with  him,  but  it  was  of  no  use,  and  )-ou 
are  to  stay  in  Beyrout  till  we  return." 

Then  the  "  Doubter"  exploded,  said  he  wouldn't  stay,  and  fur- 
thermore, he  believed  the  judge  was  not  telling  him  the  truth  ; 
his  doubts  were  so  strong  on  the  subject,  that  when  we  reached 
the  hotel  he  hired  an  English-speaking  dragoman  to  accompany 
him  to  the  stage  company's  office  and  learn  the  exact  state  of 
the  case. 

17 


CHAPTER     XIX. 


THE  GROVES  OF  LEBANON.— A  NIGHT  AMONG  THE  ARABS. 


The  "Sights"  of  Beyrout — Excursion  to  Dog  River — An  Obstinate  Carriage-Owner 
— How  he  was  "  Euchred  " — Moral  of  this  Incident — Off  for  Damascus — Ascend- 
ing Mt.  Lebanon — An  Arab  Driver — Cultivating  "Kalil,"  our  Jehu — The  Cedars 
of  Lebanon — A  Grove  as  Old  as  Solomon's  Temple — A  Wonderful  Old  City — 
The  Temple  of  the  Sun — Mystery  of  Tadmor — Cyclopean  Masonry — Monstrous 
Monoliths — Their  Dimensions — The  "  Doubter's  "  Doubts  and  their  Solution — 
Sleeping  in  an  Arab  House — What  We  Saw  There — Divans  as  Couches — A 
Dangerous  Valley — The  Robber's  Haunt. 

AFTER  we  had  lunched  we  went  out  to  see  the  town,  and 
then  we  hired  carriages  for  a  drive  to  Dog  River,  which  we 
were  told  would  require  a  couple  of  hours.  We  were  to  pay  six 
francs  each  carriage  "for  two  hours  to  Dog  River,"  and  when  we 
were  seated  the  owner  of  the  stable  demanded  the  money  in 
advance. 

We  wouldn't  pay. 

He  threatened  to  unharness  the  horses,  and  actually  began. 
We  told  him  he  must  take  us  out  of  the  carriages,  and  we 
lighted  our  cigars,  and  settled  back  for  a  comfortable  rest. 

A  crowd  collected  to  see  the  fun.  The  owner  swore  that  it  was 
always  the  rule  to  pay  in  advance,  and  we  replied  that  there  was 
no  rule  without  one  exception. 

He  said  he  must  take  the  money,  as  he  could  not  trust  his 
drivers,  and  we  invited  him  to  occupy  the  box  till  the  end  of 
the  excursion,  and  then  take  his  pay.  The  upshot  of  the  matter 
was  that  he  finally  told  the  drivers  to  go  ahead,  and  they  went. 
Dog  River  was  reached  in  twenty  minute.s,  and  then  the  joke 

(264) 


KALIL,    THE    ARAB    DRIVER.  26/ 

was  apparent.  We  would  have  been  there  and  back  in  an  hour 
or  less  had  we  paid  in  advance,  and  there  would  have  been  no 
such  thing  as  redress. 

We  kept  the  carriages  two  hours  and  took  a  drive  of  a  couple 
of  miles  on  the  Damascus  road  to  a  pretty  grove  of  pines.  Then 
we  returned  to  town  just  inside  of  the  stipulated  time  and  handed 
over  the  pay  to  the  drivers  only  when  we  were  deposited  at  the 
door  of  the  hotel. 

Moral :  Be  cautious  about  paying  a  hackman  in  advance. 

We  are  told  and  believe  that  the  horse  is  a  noble  animal — why 
is  it  that  nearly  every  one  who  associates  with  him  is  a  scoun- 
drel .''  A  horse  jockey  is  never  held  up  as  a  pattern  of  honesty  ; 
the  race  track  is  the  scene  of  much  that  is  wicked,  and  as  for 
hackmen,  their  rascality  is  the  next  thing  to  an  axiom — a  self- 
evident  proposition. 

Our  carriage  was  at  the  hotel  door  at  nine  in  the  morning  of 
the  day  after  our  arrival  at  Beyrout,  and  as  soon  as  we  could  stow 
ourselves  away  we  were  off. 

There  was  a  comfortable  space  for  five,  but  rather  close  work 
for  six,  and  it  was  absolutely  necessary  that  one  should  ride 
outside  with  the  driver.  I  undertook  the  task,  and  by  a  scientific 
arrangement  of  baggage  built  up  a  comfortable  seat.  We  started, 
and  I  went  to  cultivating  the  acquaintance  of  the  driver. 

He  spoke  a  little  French,  so  that  he  could  manage  to  under- 
stand me,  but  his  strong  point  in  the  way  of  language  was  Arabic. 
He  was  as  black  as — well,  one  of  the  blackest  men  I  ever  saw — 
as  black  as  the  character  of  a  candidate  for  office,  when  his  oppo- 
nent takes  a  turn  at  him.  His  lips  were  curly  and  his  hair  was 
thick — you  can  read  the  other  way  if  you  like — and  he  couldn't 
be  excited  into  a  smile  by  any  ordinary  means.  The  only  thing 
I  could  do  to  induce  him  to  grin  was  to  attempt  to  sing.  He 
thought  my  singing  rather  funny,  but,  as  it  frightened  the  horses, 
he  begged  me  to  desist.  He  was  a  skilful  driver,  and  his  name, 
Kalil,  a  name  about  as  common  in  that  country  as  George  or 
Charles  with  us. 

We  rattled  out  of  Beyrout  past  the  forest  of  pines  to  which 
the  European  residents  sometimes  drive  on  a  pleasant  afternoon. 
A  rain  during  the  night  had  moistened  the  road,  and  at  several 


268  CLIMBING    MOUNT   LEBANON. 

places  where  the  laborers  were  repairing  it,  the  carriage  was  a 
heavy  load  for  the  horses.  These,  by  the  way,  were  three  in 
number,  strong,  sleek,  well  kept  horses,  that  knew  their  work  and 
performed  it.  Hardly  were  we  out  of  the  city  before  we  began 
ascending  Mount  Lebanon,  and  the  ascent  is  by  no  means  an 
easy  matter.  The  summit  of  the  mountain  where  the  road  crosses 
it  is  five  thousand  six  hundred  feet  above  the  sea  level ;  as  the 
crow  flies,  it  is  not  more  than  seven  miles  from  this  summit  to 
Beyrout,  but  as  you  follow  the  road  it  is  nearly  twenty  miles. 
We  were  not  fitted  with  wings  for  flying,  and  consequently  we 
stuck  to  the  road  which  the  company  provided  for  us.  It  was 
slow  work  for  the  horses,  and,  to  ease  the  load,  the  lightest  and 
most  enterprising  of  us  left  the  carriage  and  walked. 

The  road  is  of  excellent  construction  and  reflects  great  credit 
upon  the  engineer  who  made  the  surveys  and  laid  it  out.  The 
cost  must  have  been  something  very  great,  and  I  was  not  sur- 
prised to  learn  that  the  investment  had  never  paid  well,  in  spite 
of  the  apparently  good  business  of  the  company.  In  addition  to 
the  two  dilige7ices  each  way  daily,  the  company  sends  a  daily 
freight  train  of  fifteen  wagons ;  whether  there  is  anything  or 
nothing  for  them  to  carry,  it  is  all  the  same — the  wagons  start  at 
a  fixed  time,  and  are  allowed  three  days  for  the  journey,  from  one 
city  to  the  other. 

There  is  a  large  station  for  freight  in  each  of  the  terminal 
cities,  and  at  reasonably  regular  intervals  along  the  road  there 
are  wayside  stations  with  stables  of  good  size,  and  with  quarters 
for  the  station-keeper  and  attendants.  The  stables,  stock, 
wagons,  carriages,  and  all  other  property  of  the  company,  ap- 
peared to  be  well  kept,  and  without  any  meanness  of  manage- 
ment, and  the  discipline  of  the  men  was  very  strict.  I  had 
reason  to  find  it  out  in  a  practical  way. 

I  have  done  a  good  deal  of  staging  and  posting  in  various 
parts  of  the  world,  and  have  learned  that  it  is  generally  a  good 
plan  to  get  on  friendly  terms  with  drivers,  no  matter  what  their 
nationality,  color,  or  previous  condition  of  servitude  may  be.  In 
pursuance  of  this  plan,  I  cultivated  Mr.  Kalil,  the  gentleman  of 
Nubian  origin,  who  conducted  our  atelage.  I  gave  him  a  cigar 
as  soon  as  we  started,  and  he  thanked  me  by  touching  his  hand 


"STANDING    TREAT."  269 

to  his  breast,  his  Hps,  and  his  forehead — this  is  a  VArabe — and 
when  we  pulled  up  at  a  wayside  cabaret  to  tighten  some  of  the 
straps,  I  "  stood  treat "  with  a  glass  of  arrack,  which  he  swal- 
lowed without  a  grimace.  Then  I  intimated  that  if  he  would  put 
us  through  lively,  and  never  mind  killing  a  horse  or  two,  he  could 
consider  me  good  for  a  liberal  "backsheesh."  He  shook  his  head 
and  showed  me  the  way  bill,  and  I  saw  the  company  knew  its 
business. 

The  drivers  are  required  to  go  between  the  stations  at  a  cer- 
tain speed,  and  they  must  not  exceed  it,  neither  must  they  fall 
short,  unless  from  unavoidable  reasons.  If  they  go  too  fast  they 
are  corrected  ;  I  do  not  know  exactly  how,  but  from  the  customs 
of  the  country,  I  should  imagine  that  for  a  slight  offense  a  driv- 
er's pay  would  be  stopped,  and  he  would  be  pounded  a  few  days 
with  a  hammer,  a  scythe,  or  a  trace  chain,  till  he  died.  For  a 
more  serious  offense  he  would  be  treated  with  severity  propor- 
tionate to  the  enormity  of  his  conduct. 

The  time  of  arrival  and  departure  at  each  station  is  noted  on 
the  way  bill  by  the  station  master,  so  that  there  is  no  chance  to 
cut  under  in  any  way.  I  observed  the  station  master  examining 
the  horses'  feet  as  soon  as  the  animals  were  delivered  to  him  and 
then  making  notes  on  his  book.  I  thought  this  a  strange  pro- 
ceeding until  I  learned  that  the  horses  were  numbered  on  the 
hooves,  the  number  being  neatly  cut  with  an  engraving  tool,  or 
burned  in  with  an  iron. 

The  company  allows  none  but  its  own  teams  on  the  road,  ex- 
cept on  payment  of  a  heavy  toll ;  the  old  bridle  road  or  track  is 
in  sight  most  of  the  way,  and  we  saw  many  pack  trains  of  camels, 
mules,  donkeys,  and  horses  threading  their  way  through  the  mud, 
while  we  were  rolling  on  a  macadamized  track.  In  no  instance 
did  we  see  a  pack  train  on  the  modern  road. 

Away  to  the  north,  over  a  rough  and  difficult  road,  are  the 
famous  Cedars  of  Lebanon. 

They  are  in  a  valley  which  is  dominated  by  the  high  peaks  of 
the  range,  and  stand  on  a  little  hill  or  knoll,  so  that  they  are  vis- 
ible from  a  considerable  distance. 

The  grove  is  not  large — one  can  walk  quite  around  it  in  half 
an  hour — and  contains  not  far  from  four  hundred  trees  of  all 


2/0 


THE  CEDARS  OF  LEBANON. 


sizes.  The  old  and  gnarled  trees  are  in  the  centre,  while  the 
younger  ones  form  the  outside  of  the  grove.  Not  more  than  a 
dozen  can  claim  any  great  antiquity,  but  there  are  thirty  or  forty 
others  that  vary  from  three  to  live  feet  in  diameter — the  largest 
of  the  trees,  and  supposed  to  be  one  of  the  oldest,  is  more  than 
forty  feet  in  circumference.     The  trees  have  been  much  defaced 

and  broken  by  visitors, 
some  of  whom  would 
no  doubt  carry  away 
the  whole  of  Mount 
Lebanon  if  it  could  be 
packed  in  a  travelling 
trunk. 

Though  there  are 
other  cedar  groves  in 
Syria,  the  one  here 
mentioned  is  the  most 
important,  for  the 
reason  that  it  is  sup- 
posed to  have  fur- 
nished the  timber  for 
Solomon's  Temple,  as 
recorded  in  the  Old 
Testament.  Cedar 
CEDAR  OF  LEBANON.  trccswcre  doubtlcss 

very  abundant  in  the  palmy  days  of  Jerusalem  ;  at  present  they 
are  very  scarce,  and  if  the  natives  and  other  barbarians  continue 
to  destroy  their  limbs  and  build  fires  in  the  grove,  as  they  do 
in  these  days,  these  famous  trees  will  soon  live  only  in  history. 

Up,  up  we  went  along  the  sides  of  Mount  Lebanon,  the  air 
growing  cooler  as  we  rose,  and  a  violent  hail-storm  dropping  upon 
us.  It  was  warm  when  we  left  Beyrout,  and  I  mounted  my  box 
without  an  overcoat.  Soon  it  grew  cool,  and  I  donned  a  light 
one  ;  an  hour  later,  I  abandoned  the  light  for  a  heavy  one  ;  next 
I  spread  my  shawl  in  front  of  me,  and  next  I  wrapped  a  silk  ker- 
chief around  my  neck. 

We  made  our  second  change  of  horses  after  passing  the  sum- 
mit, and  then  began  the  descent. 


THE  WONDERS  OF  BAALBEK.  2/1 

Now  we  had  speed ;  we  wound  down  and  down,  as  we  had 
wound  up  and  up,  but  we  went  three  or  four  times  as  fast.  Far 
away  at  our  feet  lay  a  plain — the  plains  of  Buka.  Two  hours 
from  the  summit,  we  were  at  Sto'ra,  a  wayside  station,  where  we 
passed  the  night,  and  were  most  kindly  treated  by  the  keepers — 
a  Greek  man  married  to  an  Italian  woman,  once  a  danseitse  at  La 
Scala,  Milan. 

Next  morning  before  day,  we  were  up  and  off  for  Baalbek, 
which  lies  about  twenty  miles  away  to  the  left  of  the  road. 

It  had  rained  in  the  night,  and  the  soil  was  soft  and  sticky, 
making  slow  work  for  our  horses.  The  mud  clung  to  their  feet 
and  formed  huge  balls,  and  we  could  only  advance  at  a  walk. 
The  saddles  were  unused  to  us  and  we  to  them,  and  we  hurt 
them  a  good  deal.  When  we  dismounted  at  Baalbek,  every  one 
of  the  party  walked  like  Falstaff's  recruits,  wide  between  the 
legs,  as  though  accustomed  to  the  gyves,  and  some  of  us  were 
inclined  to  stand  while  at  meals.  We  had  no  time  to  waste,  and 
after  lunch  proceeded  to  do  the  ruins. 

We  found  them  all  that  fancy  and  travellers  have  painted  them. 
They  are  grander  and  loftier  than  anything  at  Rome  or  Athens, 
and  the  architecture  is  of  a  most  beautiful  and  delicate  pattern. 
The  temple  in  its  glory  must  have  been  something  majestic,  and 
I  have  seen  few  things  among  the  ruins  and  edifices  of  Europe 
and  Asia  more  striking  to  the  eye  or  more  beautiful  in  general 
effect  than  the  court  and  colonnades  of  the  Temple  of  the  Sun. 

But  the  wonder  of  Baalbek  is  in  the  stones  used  in  its  construc- 
tion. Hewn  stones,  twelve,  fifteen,  and  twenty  feet  long,  and 
proportionately  wide  and  high,  are  frequent  in  the  walls  and 
substructures.  You  grow  weary  of  saying :  "  There's  one !" 
"  Look  at  this  !"  "  and  this!"  "and  this  !"  You  wander  down  in 
the  under-ground  passages,  and  the  size  of  the  stones,  placed  as 
precisely  as  bricks  in  a  wall  of  a  building  of  to-day,  fairly  astounds 
you;  you  come  out,  and  look  on  the  wall  of  the  temple,  and  you 
find  stones  twenty-four,  twenty-eight,  and  thirty  feet  long,  and 
proportionally  wide  and  high.  You  see  stones  of  this  sort  away 
up  in  the  air  at  the  tip  of  the  columns,  and  you  wonder  how  they 
got  there. 

In  the  western  wall  are  three  great  stones,  one  of  them  sixty- 


272 


GIGANTIC    STONES. 


four  feet  long,  another  sixty-three  feet  eight  inches,  and  another 
sixty-three  feet ;  they  are  thirteen  feet  high  and  thirteen  feet 
thick.     They  are  twenty  feet  above  ground,  properly  placed  in 

position,  and  they  were 
brought  from  the  quarries 
nearly  a  mile  away.  And  in 
the  quarries, is  another  stone 
of  the  same  sort  sixty-eight 
feet  long,  but  not  quite  de- 
tached from  the  rock  below. 
Don't  drop  the  subject 
now  but  pace  off  sixty- 
three  feet  in  your  garden 
or  back  yard  or  some  other 
man's  yard  or  garden  ;  then 
w  pace  off  thirteen  feet  and 
then  look  up  thirteen  feet 
on  the  side  of  the  house 
■^  and  then  imagine  a  hewn 
stone  as  large,  and  after 
^  }'ou  have  done  it  you  will 
just  begin  to  imagine  these 
stones  as  we  saw  them. 

During  our  evening  halt 
at  Stora  one  of  us  read 
aloud  from  the  guide  book 
the  description  of  Baalbek. 
When  we  came  to  the 
measurement  of  the  stones' 
the  "  Doubter  "  explained  : 
"  Is  anybody  fool  enough 
to  believe  such  nonsense  ? 

We  tried  to  argue  with 
him  that  possibly  the  stones 
were  of  that  size,  but  he  closed  the  argument  as  he  did  most 
arguments  by  saying:  "  I  know  better." 

On  our  way  to  Baalbek  we  saw  the  stone  in  the  quarry  and 
asked  what  he  thought  of  it. 


A    "  VEREE    GREAT  "    LIAR  ! 


273 


"  That  is  nothing,"  he  replied,  "  they  haven't  moved  it." 

When  we  saw  the  three  stones  in  the  wall  and  measured  their 
length  and  height  he  said  they  were  joined  together. 

He  could  find  no  joint  and  finally  insisted  that  they  were  only 
thin  slabs  fastened  to  the  walls,  and  to  this  day  he  insists  that  he 
knows  they  are  nothing  like  what  they  are  represented  to  be. 
He  vowed  not  to  speak  of  them  when  he  reached  home  for  fear 
he  would  not  be  believed. 

He  always  kept  the  hotel  bills  so  that  he  could  prove  that  he 
had  been  to  the  places  we  visited. 

"The  '  Doubter  must  be  a  veree  great,  what  you  call  in  Eng- 
lish, liar,  at  home,"  said  our  fair  German  companion  one  day,  "if 
he  thinks  people  not  believe  him  without  his  hotel  bills." 

The  "  Doubter"  after  all  was  a  source  of  amusement  to  us  at 
odd  times,  in  spite  of  his  high  rank  as  a  nuisance,  and  we  finally 
concluded  that  it  was  well  to  have  him  along  on  the  same  prin- 
ciple that  the  Romans  used  to  receive  a  victorious  general  with 
shouts  of  applause  and  triumphal  honors  and  at  the  same  time 
kept  a  slave  at  his  side  to  call  him  opprobrious  names  and  con- 
tinually remind  him  that  he  was  mortal. 

The  ancient  Egyptian  also  set  our  party  an  example  in  the 
same  way  as  they  used  to  put  a  skeleton  in  one  of  the  chairs  at 
a  public  or  private  festivity  so  that  the  guests  might  remember 
what  they  were  coming  to. 

We  slept  that  night  in  an  Arab  house  at  Baalbek.  Our  beds 
were  on  divans  or  couches.  W^e  were  tended  by  Arab  man-ser- 
vants and  maid-servants  and  were  bitten  by  Arab  fleas.  The 
rooms  of  every  Arab's  house  contain  divans  that  extend  along  the 
end  furthest  from  the  door  and  sometimes  along  one  of  the  sides. 
They  consist  usually  of  benches  or  frames  not  quite  as  high  as 
the  seat  of  a  chair  and  about  three  and  a  half  feet  wide  and  are 
covered  with  mattresses  that  render  them  agreeable  to  sit  or  re- 
cline upon  We  found  them  quite  comfortable  after  our  hard 
day's  travel,  though  perhaps  a  trifle  too  hard  for  American 
natives.  In  the  poorer  houses  these  divans  are  of  the  same  ma- 
terial as  the  floor — solid  earth — covered  with  a  mat  of  straw. 

Most  of  the  Arab  houses  are  extremely  dirty  and  abound  in 
vermin.     The  one  we  occupied  was  quite  neat  and  well  kept,  and 


274  A    NIGHT    IN    AN    ARAB    HOUSE. 

the  dragoman  who  accompanied  us  from  Stora  expressed  sur- 
prise at  our  discovery  of  fleas.  But  we  did  not  mind  them  as 
we  were  too  weary  to  be  bothered  about  trifles,  and  fleas  are  fa- 
miliar acquaintances  to  a  person  who  has  travelled  in  Italy,  Rus- 
sia, and  Turkey.  Travelling,  like  poverty,  acquaints  one  with  a 
great  many  varieties  of  bed-fellows. 

We  were  up  long  before  day  ;  we  breakfasted  by  candle  light, 
and  before  the  sun  tipped  the  summits  of  the  Lebanon  range 
with  golden  color,  we  were  on  horseback  and  away.  Through 
the  gray  dawn  we  took  the  last  look  at  the  tall  columns  of  the 
Temple  of  the  Sun  standing  as  they  have  stood  for  centuries  and 
may  stand  for  centuries  to  come. 

Shall  the  edifices  which  we  erect  ever  become  like  those  of 
Baalbek,  shrouded  in  a  veil  of  mystery  well  nigh  impenetrable, 
and  fill  so  little  place  in  the  page  of  history  that  future  ages  shall 
not  know  who  built  them  and  what  was  their  purpose  .-• 

Little,  very  little,  is  known  of  Baalbek ;  her  foundation  and 
her  founders  are  unrevealed  mysteries,  and  of  her  glory  and  pro- 
gress and  decline  we  have  only  the  most  meagre  information. 
That  the  city  is  very  ancient  there  can  be  no  doubt  ;  that  her 
edifices  are  among  the  wonders  of  the  world  we  have  the  evidence 
before  us. 

We  rode  down  the  plain  of  Buka  as  we  had  ascended  it  the 
day  before.  A  little  after  eleven  o'clock  we  flung  ourselves  or 
rather  dropped  ungracefully  from  our  saddles  and  greeted  the 
swarthy  Kalil  who  had  come  out  a  short  distance  with  the  car- 
riage to  meet  us.  Kalil  and  the  horses  soon  took  us  to  Stora 
where  we  dined  and  then  packed  ourselves  in  the  carriage  to  con- 
tinue our  journey  to  Damascus^  We  crossed  the  flat  plain  at  a 
gallop  and  then  entered  a  long  valley  leading  up  the  range  which 
is  over  against  Lebanon. 

This  valley  is  known  as  the  Wady  Harir ;  then  we  cross  a 
plain  and  after  leaving  this  we  enter  a  narrow  winding  glen,  the 
Wady  il  Kurn,  or  "  Valley  of  the  Horn."  This  pass  is  one  of  the 
wildest  in  the  Anti-Lebanon  ;  it  is  three  miles  long  and  was  once 
very  dangerous  on  account  of  the  robbers  that  infested  it.  The 
sides  are  rough  and  but  slightly  wooded  and  the  bottom  is  evi- 
dently at  certain  seasons  of  the  year  the  bed  of  a  torrent. 


IN    SIGHT    OF    DAMASCUS. 


277 


Night  came  on  and  shrouded  everything  around  us  in  black- 
ness ;  there  was  an  extra  touch  of  darkness  to  it  as  there  was  no 
moon  and  there  were  thick  clouds  between  us  and  the  stars.  We 
could  see  little  more  than  what  was  revealed  by  our  lamps  and 
that  little  soon  became  monotonous.  We  crossed  the  plain  of 
Dinas  and  entered  the  gorge  of  the  Abana,  the  river  which  is  the 
pride  of  Damascus,  and  has  always  occupied  a  prominent  place 
in  her  history. 

"Are  not  Pharpar  and  Abana,"  said  Xaaman,  the  leper,  "rivers 
of  Damascus  better  than  all  the  rivers  of  Syria?" 

Following  the  Abana  we  at  length  beheld  the  lights  of  Da- 
mascus, and  at  nine  o'clock  entered  the  city  and  were  deposited 
at  the  door  of  the  only  hotel  it  contains. 


CHAPTER  XX. 


DAMASCUS— THE  GARDEN  CITY  OF  THE  EAST. 

Dimitri  and  his  hotel— Court-yards  and  fountain— How  people  live  in  Damascus — 
Parlors,  bed-rooms  and  boudoirs — A  bet  and  its  decision — The  "  Doubter  and  his 
Donkey"— The  Street  called  "  Straight"— Bab-Shurky— Spots  famous  in  history 
—Shaking  hands  across  a  Street— Scene  of  St.  Paul's  conversion— The  Window  of 
escape— Tombs  of  Mohammed's  Wives— The  "  Doubter"  figuring  on  probabilities 
— An  unexpected  upset— Visiting  the  lepers'  hospital— A  frightful  spectacle— The 
Great  Mosque— View  from  the  Minaret — The  Bazaars  and  Curiosity  Shops — Mak- 
ing a  trade — A  case  of  Fraud. 

THE  hotel  at  Damascus  is  kept  by  a  Greek  named  Dimitri, 
who  has  been  familiar  with  Syria  for  a  great  many  years, 
and  was  in  his  younger  days  a  dragoman. 

His  house  is  spacious,  and  more  comfortable  than  I  had  ex- 
pected to  find  it,  and  in  appearance  is  the  most  Oriental  of  all 
the  hotels  I  have  seen  in  the  East.  You  enter  by  a  low,  nar- 
row doorway,  and  passing  a  short  vestibule  find  yourself  in  a 
marble  paved  court  open  to  the  sky,  and  possessing  a  fine  fountain. 

When  I  say  a  fine  fountain,  I  mean  that  it  is  so  from  an  Orien- 
tal point  of  view — i.  e.,  there  is  a  broad  tank,  with  stone  sides, 
where  the  water  is  kept  constantly  changing  by  means  of  a  two 
inch  supply-pipe,  and  an  equally  large  waste  pipe.  To  the  right 
of  the  fountain  there  is  a  recess  about  twenty  feet  square,  where 
are  divans  and  chairs  in  abundance. 

Beyond  the  fountain  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  court  is  the 
parlor  or  saloon.  It  is  entered  by  an  ordinary  door,  and  you  find 
inside  a  marble  floor  as  long  as  the  room  is  wide, — about  six  feet 

(278) 


HOW    I    LOST    THE    WINE. 


279 


in  width, — and  having  a  fountain  in  the  centre.  The  rest  of  the 
apartment  on  each  side  of  the  marble  floor  is  elevated  about  two 
feet  and  has  steps  leading  up  to  it. 

The  spaces  thus  elevated  are  richly  carpeted  and  have  divans 
on  three  sides.  They  have  in  Dimitri's  hotel  a  few  chairs  in 
front  of  the  divans ;  but  these  are  rather  out  of  place,  and  are 
only  kept  there  out  of  deference  to  the  foreign  patrons.  The 
roof  is  high,  and  the  highest  part  of  it  all  is  in  the  centre.  We 
have  reason  to  know  about  it,  as  we  got  into  a  discussion  while 
waiting  for  dinner,  and  two  of  the  party  risked  a  bottle  of  cham- 
pagne on  the  result. 


COURT  OF  A   HOUSE   IN   DAMASCUS. 


One  said  the  roof  was  thirty  feet  above  the  marble  floor,  and 
the  other  thought  it  was  twenty-nine  and  a  half.  The  nearest 
was  to  win,  and  Dimitri  sent  for  a  pole  and  ladders  and  we  meas- 
ured it.  The  result  was  twenty-nine  feet  ten  and  one-quarter 
inches,  and  I  lost  the  wine. 

I  have  been  thus  particular  in  describing  the  court,  fountain, 
and  saloon  of  Dimitri's  Hotel  for  the  reason  that  it  will  answer 
for  any  well-to-do  house  in  Damascus,  with  the  exception  of  the 
chairs,  which  should  not  be  introduced  there. 

"  Take  away  the  chairs,"  said  Dimitri,  "  and  my  house  is  Ori- 


280  TAKING    "ADVICE    AND    DONKEYS." 

ental,  but  with  them  here,  it  is  not.  The  instant  chairs  are  intro- 
duced the  Oriental  character  is  gone." 

I  should  have  added  that  his  court  contains  several  orange  and 
other  tropical  trees  ;  on  some  of  the  former  the  oranges  were 
ripening,  and  were  plucked  and  offered  to  us. 

The  height  of  the  roof  of  the  saloon  may  seem  considerable, 
but  we  were  told  that  it  is  frequently  ten  or  twelve  feet  more, 
and  before  leaving  the  city  I  saw  some  parlors  which  had  I  think 
forty  feet  of  distance  between  floor  and  roof. 

Next  morning  we  took  a  guide  and  started  out  for  the  sights. 

"  The  weather  is  fine  to-day,"  said  the  guide  ;  "  you  had  better 
take  donkeys,  and  see  what  we  have  to  see  of  the  outside  of  the 
town.  To-morrow  it  may  rain,  and  we  can  then  see  the  bazaars, 
mosques,  and  houses." 

We  took  his  advice  and  donkeys,  and' started  at  once.  He  led 
us  through  crowded  streets  to  the  gates,  or  rather  to  one  of  the 
gates,  and  then  we  proceeded  to  make  a  circuit  of  Damascus. 

Our  starting  point  was  Bab-Shurkey  or  the  East  Gate  It  is 
a  picturesque  piece  of  architecture  somewhat  dilapidated,  but 
containing  traces  of  its  former  glory.  Here  was  once  a  magnifi- 
cent Roman  portal  with  a  central  and  two  side  arches  which 
were  walled  up  more  than  eight  hundred  years  ago.  This 
gate  is  at  the  end  of  the  "  street  called  Straight,"  by  which  St. 
Paul  entered  the  city,  and  from  the  top  of  the  gate  one  can  look 
along  the  street  until  it  is  lost  in  a  confusion  of  buildings.  It  is 
not  straight  as  we  use  the  word,  but  is  enough  so  for  Oriental 
notions. 

In  the  Roman  period,  and  down  to  the  Mohammedan  conquest, 
there  was  a  wide  avenue  where  this  street  now  is  ;  it  was  about 
a  hundred  feet  wide  and  was  divided  by  Corinthian  columns  into 
three  parts  corresponding  to  the  three  arches  of  the  gate.  They 
have  been  distinctly  traced  in  several  localities.  As  you  look 
down  there  now  you  see  a  narrow  lane  with  uneven  rows  of 
buildings  on  either  side ;  the  projecting  windows  almost  touch 
each  other,  and  in  some  localities  they  are  less  than  a  foot  apart. 
Hand-shaking  and  osculation  would  be  easy  across  the  streets, 
and  elopements  and  intrigues  are  facilitated  by  the  proximity  of 
opposite  dwellings. 


WHERE    ST.    PAUL    WAS    CONVERTED.  281 

We  went  near  the  wall  outside  of  the  city,  and  were  shown  sev- 
eral of  the  local  curiosities.  We  passed  a  projecting  tower  of 
early  Saracenic  masonry,  and  near  it  our  attention  was  called 
to  an  old  gateway,  which  has  been  walled  up  more  than  700 
years.  This  is  the  reputed  scene  of  Paul's  escape  from  Da- 
mascus. 

The  window  was  shown  until  within  the  past  twenty  years, 
when  some  changes  in  the  wall  removed  it. 

In  front  of  the  gate  we  were  shown  the  tomb  of  George,  the 
porter  who  aided  St.  Paul  in  his  escape,  and  was  martyred  in 
consequence.  Our  guide  was  a  Christian  Arab,  and  spoke  of  the 
place  with  great  veneration,  as  do  all  the  native  Christians.  Be- 
yond this  is  the  Christian  cemetery,  which  was  desecrated  by  the 
Moslems  at  the  time  of  the  massacre  of  i860.  Some  of  the 
tombs  were  opened  and  the  bones  were  scattered  about ;  after- 
ward some  of  those  wounded  in  the  massacre  were  thrown  alive 
into  the  pit.  The  scene  of  St.  Paul's  conversion  is  located  here. 
Not  far  away  is  the  foreign  cemetery ;  among  those  buried  there 
is  the  accomplished  historian,  H.  T.  Buckle. 

The  guide  called  our  attention  to  the  houses  upon  the  wall  of 
the  city  ;  it  was  from  a  house  of  this  sort  that  Paul  was  let  down 
in  a  basket,  and  one  can  readily  see  that  it  was  easy  for  Rahab, 
who  dwelt  upon  the  town  wall  of  Jericho,  to  let  "  down  the 
spies"  by  a  cord  through  the  window.  On  several  occasions  in 
time  of  war,  these  houses  have  been  removed,  but  they  have 
speedily  re-appeared  on  the  return  of  peace. 

The  walls  of  the  city  were  no  doubt  of  some  importance 
formerly,  and  are  still  a  sufficient  defense  against  Bedouin  cav- 
alry, but  they  would  be  of  no  consequence  to-day.  Modern  ar- 
tillery would  make  short  work  of  them,  and  there  are  places  where 
a  battery  of  ordinary  field  guns  could  destroy  them  in  a  few 
hours. 

The  city  has  outgrown  the  walls  in  several  localities,  and  it  is 
said  that  a  third  of  the  inhabitants  are  extra-mural.  The  popula- 
tion of  Damascus  is  estimated  at  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand.  Twenty  thousand  of  these  are  Christians  and  six 
thousand  Jews.  The  remainder  are  Moslems,  and  many  of  them 
are  of  the  most  fanatical  character. 


282 


MOSLEM    GRAVES. 


We  halt  at  the  Mohammedan  cemetery  of  Bab-es- Saghir,  an 
area  of  undulating  ground,  covered  with  a  forest  of  tombstones, 
and  little  whitewashed  mounds  of  brick,  in  shape  resembling  a 
house  roof.  These  are  the  graves,  and  each  has  a  head  stone 
with  an  inscription  in  Arabic,  and  beside  it,  is  a  cavity  for  water, 
generally  containing  a  green  branch  of  myrtle.     Had  we  been 


MOSLEM   WOMEN   WEEPING   AT   A  TOMB. 


there  on  a  Friday  we  should  have  seen  crowds  of  Moslem  w(;men 
weepmg  over  the  graves  of  relatives  or  friends,  and  after  the  cer- 
emony had  ended  they  would  have  fallen  to  chatting  pleasantly, 
as  if  their  visit  were  not  a  matter  of  grief.  We  saw  the  tombs 
of  three  of  Mohammed's  wives,  and  of  Fatimah,  his  grand-daugh- 


BATTLE  OF  THE  JACKASSES.  283 

ter,  and  we  were  shown  other  graves,  and  tombs  containing  the 
remains  of  Moslem  warriors,  statesmen,  and  historians. 

The  "  Doubter"  did  not  beheve  that  Mohammed's  wives  were 
buried  there,  and  refused  to  dismount  and  enter  the  cemetery. 
When  we  returned  to  the  gate  we  found  him  prostrate  m  the  dirt, 
and  just  rising  with  the  help  of  the  donkey  drivers.  It  seemed 
that  his  beast  resented  the  notion  of  standing  patiently  for  a  man 
to  sit  on  him,  and  after  making  a  remonstrance  in  donkey  fash- 
ion, he  ended  by  turning  a  somersault  that  unseated  the  "Doubter." 
The  latter  jackass  described  a  sort  of  cruciform  parabola  and  at 
the  end  of  his  gyrations  found  himself  sitting  down  lengthwise, 
and  with  his  back  uppermost.  Several  new  constellations  and 
solar  systems  were  flying  around  his  excited  skull  and  his  doubts 
as  to  the  character  of  this  planet  were  stronger  than  ever. 

"  I  don't  believe,"  said  he,  as  soon  as  his  mouth  was  cleared  of 
the  dust  that  encumbered  it,  "I  don't  believe  that  there  is  any- 
thing around  here  worth  seeing.  We  had  better  go  back  to  the 
hotel  and  stay  there." 

"  Nonsense,"  replied  one  of  us,  "  Damascus  is  the  most  inter- 
esting city  of  the  East,  within  our  reach  ;  one  of  the  oldest  cities 
and  one  that  has  undergone  very  little  change  in  two  thousand 
years." 

"  I  know  better  than  that,"  said  the  "  Doubter,"  "  nobody  be- 
lieves this  city  is  two  thousand,  or  even  one  thousand  years  old." 

I  came  to  his  help  just  then  and  told  him  he  was  right  ;  that 
the  city  was  founded  in  1811  by  a  colony  of  Arabs  from  New 
Jersey,  and  was  never  heard  of  by  the  civilized  world  until  De- 
cember, 1847,  when  it  was  discovered  by  an  Englishman  named 
Smith.  Somehow  my  information  did  not  please  him,  and  he 
was  sullen  all  the  rest  of  the  day. 

Later  on  I  found  what  it  was  to  be  dropped  from  a  donkey. 
I  was  dismounting,  and  the  beast  evidently  wanted  me  to  be  quick 
about  it.  Just  as  I  leaned  forward  to  swing  my  right  leg  over, 
the  donkey  dropped  his  head  and  shoulders  and  gave  me  a  most 
beautiful  fall.  I  went  down  among  other  donkeys  and  in  the  dust 
of  the  street,  but  I  flatter  myself  that  I  did  it  gracefully. 
A  dozen  Arabs  were  standing  around  but  not  one  of  them  smiled 
while  all  my  companions  let  themselves  out  into  laughter.  I  told 
18 


284  A    VISIT    TO    THE    GREAT    MOSQUE. 

them  it  was  not  polite  to  laugh  at  the  unfortunate,  but  that  didn't 
appear  to  check  them. 

We  visited  the  house  of  Ananias,  the  High  Priest,  all  the  points 
connected  with  St.  Paul's  stay  in  Damascus,  and  then  we  went  to 
the  Mosques. 

Before  doing  this  it  was  necessary  to  visit  the  American  Con- 
sul or  Vice  Consul,  and  obtain  a  permit.  The  Consul  is  a  native 
of  the  country,  a  polite,  affable  gentleman,  speaking  English  quite 
well,  and  showing  a  desire  to  serve  the  citizens  and  the  interests 
of  the  country  he  represents.  He  lives  in  a  fine  house  of  recent 
construction  ;  his  house  was  burned  in  the  massacre  of  i860,  and 
he  narrowly  escaped  assassination.  He  received  us  in  the  style 
of  .the  Orient,  with  coffee  and  pipes,  and  made  us  welcome  to 
Damascus.  He  sent  at  once  for  the  desired  permit  and  sent  his 
janissary  to  accompany  us  in  our  visit  to  the  mosque. 

Before  going  to  the  mosque  we  went  to  the  site  of  the  house 
of  Naaman,  the  leper  ;  a  leper-hospital  now  occupies  the  spot. 
And  speaking  of  lepers,  we  afterwards  went  to  the  leper-hospital 
and  saw  half  a  dozen  of  the  victims  of  this  dreadful  disease. 
Some  were  blind,  some  had  the  face,  some  the  arms,  and  some 
the  legs,  much  swollen,  and  the  face  and  hands  of  one  were  cov- 
ered with  scales.  Under  the  edges  of  these  scales  the  flesh  was 
raw  and  inflamed,  and  we  were  told  that  some  of  the  patients  in 
the  hospital  were  masses  of  sores. 

The  Great  Mosque  occupies  a  quadrangle  one  hundred  and 
sixty-three  yards  long  by  one  hundred  and  eight  wide.  Part  of 
this  quadrangle  is  a  court  surrounded  by  cloisters  resting  on  stone 
pillars  ;  the  rest  of  the  space  is  occupied  by  the  mosque,  which 
is  four  hundred  and  thirty-one  feet  by  one  hundred  and  eight. 
We  removed  our  boots  and  put  on  our  slippers  before  entering 
the  building.  The  interior  is  divided  into  three  aisles  by  two 
ranges  of  Corinthian  pillars,  which  support  round  arches.  In  the 
centre  is  a  dome  one  hundred  and  twenty  feet  high  by  fifty  feet 
in  diameter,  and  standing  on  four  massive  pillars.  The  floor  is 
of  stone  and  covered  with  soft  carpets,  and  here  and  there  on  the 
carpets,  were  the  Moslems  at  their  prayers.  Our  attention  was 
particularly  attracted  by  one  devout  old  Jew,  who  wore  a  phylac- 
tery upon  his  forehead  and  who  appeared  to  be  utterly  uncon- 


A    MOSLEM    TRADITION. 


285 


scious  of  what  was  going  on  around  him.  On  the  eastern  side 
of  the  mosque  there  is  an  elaborately  carved  Keebbek,  or  shrine, 
and  below  it  is  a  cave,  in  which  the  head  of  John  the  Baptist  is 
said  to  be  preserved  in  a  casket  of  gold. 

There  are  three  minarets  to  the  mosque  ;  the  most  important 
is  the  minaret  of  Jesus,  at  the  south-eastern  angle,  and  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  feet  high.     There  is  a  Moslem  tradition  that  when 


SYiUAN  JEW    WITH    PHYLACTERY. 


Jesus  comes  to  judge  the  world,  He  will  descend  on  this  minaret, 
enter  the  mosque,  and  call  before  him  men  of  every  sect  and 
nationality.  We  climbed  to  the  top  of  one  of  the  minarets,  and 
obtained  from  it  a  fine  view  of  the  city. 

Mosques,  bazaars,  houses,  mud  walls  and  flat  roofs,  remains  ot 
Roman  and  Saracenic  columns,  streets  and  court-yards,  formed  the 
scene  before  us.  Further  off  were  the  gardens,  the  olive  and 
orange  groves  of  Damascus  ;  the  Abana  sparkled  in  the  sunlight 


286  THE    OLDEST    CITY    IN    THE   WORLD, 

like  a  band  or  thread  of  silver  ;  the  barren  hills  beyond  formed 
a  sharp  contrast  to  the  fertile  plain  ;  and  away  in  the  distance  we 
could  distinguish  a  belt  of  desert.  Another  mosque,  whose  min- 
aret is  covered  with  blue  encaustic  tiles,  attracted  our  attention, 
and  we  longed  to  visit  it.  To  our  disappointment  we  learned 
that  admission  was  then  impossible. 

A  visitor  to  Damascus  should  take  advantage  of  the  first  clear 
afternoon,  to  proceed  at  a  late  hour  to  the  Salahiyeh  hills,  so  as 
to  look  upon  the  city  at  sunset.  The  road  is  pleasant  and  pic- 
turesque, and  leads  gently  upward  beyond  a  village  that  lies 
between  the  hill  and  the  city.  An  hour's  ride  brings  one  to  a 
point  where  the  whole  plain  is  spread  out  like  a  map  at  the  spec- 
tator's feet. 

Embowered  in  gardens  and  tinted  by  the  lights  that  varied 
every  moment,  Damascus  looked  to  us  as  much  like  an  earthly 
paradise  as  anything  in  the  Orient.  Away  to  the  east  was  the 
range  of  Anti-Lebanon  ;  to  the  north  was  the  plain,  with  a 
strip  of  desert,  and  to  the  south  the  plain  stretched  away  and 
broke  into  the  hills  in  the  distance.  We  could  trace  out  the 
shape  of  the  city,  and  follow  with  the  eye  the  direction  of  its 
principal  streets  ;  the  tall  minarets  and  bright  domes  of  the 
mosques  formed  salient  features  of  the  landscapes,  and  altogether 
the.  scene  was  thoroughly  Oriental.  It  was  from  this  hill  that 
Mohammed  looked  and  pronounced  Damascus  the  most  beautiful 
city  of  the  world,  and  promised  the  most  dutiful  of  his  attendants, 
that  they  should  be  appointed  to  dwell  there. 

Thus  we  looked  upon  the  city  which  is  doubtless  the  oldest  in 
the  world.  More  than  three  thousand  years  it  has  flourished ; 
more  than  thirty  centuries  it  has  stood  there  a  city — the  beautiful 
city  of  the  plain.  Nations  have  appeared  and  vanished.  King- 
doms and  empires  and  republics  have  risen  and  fallen,  but 
Damascus  has  stood  unchanged.  Thrones  have  crumbled,  dynas- 
ties have  come  and  gone.  Statesmen  and  poets  and  scholars 
have  lived  their  brief  period  of  existence,  brief  and  insignificant 
in  the  centuries  that  have  rolled  over  Damascus.  Saracen, 
Roman,  Moslem,  and  Christian  have  besieged  the  city  ;  twice  it 
has  been  the  center  of  empires,  and  many  times  it  has  been  the 
seat  of  power  that  was  felt  far  away.     Though  never  formally 


A    SAUNTER   THROUGH    THE    BAZAARS.  28/ 

occupied  by  Christians,  it  was  one  of  the  early  centers  of 
Christianity,  and  for  nearly  three  centuries  this  was  the  predomi- 
nant religion.  And  later  in  its  history  the  armies  of  the 
Mohammedan  empire  went  forth  from  Damascus,  spreading  the 
religion  of  the  Prophet  to  Spain  on  the  one  hand,  and  to  Hindos- 
tan  on  the  other.  Damascus  was  then  the  seat  of  an  empire  the 
greatest  on  the  globe,  extending  from  the  Himalayas  to  the 
Atlantic.  Wealth  was  poured  into  her  coffers,  and  she  became 
the  richest  as  well  as  the  mightiest  capital.  Though  she  has  de- 
clined she  has  not  fallen,  and  presents  to-day  a  picture  of  serene 
and  well-deserved  prosperity. 

Damascus  without  the  bazaars  would  be  Hamlet  without  Ham- 
let. Here  you  see  the  Orient  in  its  perfection.  Instead  of  shops 
scattered  through  the  city,  as  in  the  West,  all  trades,  or  rather 
all  the  persons  in  one  trade,  are  brought  together.  The  bazaars 
of  Damascus  have  had  a  world-wide  celebrity  for  centuries,  and 
there  are  none  in  the  East  better  than  they.  You  can  buy  there 
anything  you  want,  from  a  slave  to  a  cigarette,  and  from  a  sewing 
needle  to  2.  pariire  of  diamonds.  You  can  wander  for  hours  and 
days  in  the  bazaars  ;  in  the  slipper  bazaar,  the  tobacco  bazaar,  the 
seed  bazaar,  the  mercers'  bazaar,  the  tailors'  bazaar,  the  clog  bazaar, 
the  silversmiths'  bazaar,  the  spice  bazaar,  the  book  bazaar,  the 
old  clo'  bazaar,  the  iron  bazaar,  the  pipe  bazaar,  and  other  bazaars 
to  the  number  of  a  dozen  or  more. 

There  is  a  general  similarity  in  the  bazaars,  so  far  as  the  exter- 
nals are  concerned  ;  the  shops  are  little  pens,  from  four  or  six 
to  ten  feet  square,  where  the  merchant  sits  or  squats  on  the  floor, 
and  the  customer  sits  on  the  little  bench  in  front.  The  front  of 
the  shop  is  entirely  open  during  the  day  ;  it  can  be  shut  at  night, 
but  the  locks  by  which  it  is  held  are  of  a  very  primitive  and  very 
flimsy  pattern.  If  the  owner  wishes  to  go  away  in  the  day  time 
he  spreads  a  net  in  front  during  his  absence,  and  this  is  his  card 
to  say  he  is  "out."  The  merchant  does  not  press  you  to  buv. 
and  he  generally  seems  not  to  care  whether  you  buy  or  not. 

In  the  slipper  bazaar  you  pass  shop  after  shop  where  Oriental 
slippers  of  all  patterns  and  values  are  sold  ;  in  the  tailors'  bazaar 
you  find  shop  after  shop  where  tailors  are  at  work  upon  Oriental 
garments,  and  so  you  go  on  through  one  bazaar  after  another. 


288 


ORIENTAL    MERCHANTS. 


Part  of  the  street  called  Straight  is  occupied  by  bazaars,  a.nd 
there  is  a  network  of  them  on  both  sides  of  it. 

In  the  silversmith's  bazaar  each  man  occupies  a  space  about 
six  feet  square,  in  a  sort  of  large  hall,  with  low  roof  and  many- 
supporting  pillars  ;  this  space  contains  both  work-room  and  sales- 
room.    Most  of  the  work  is  done  to  order,  but  each  shop  has  a 


ii^*-' 


A   MONEY  CHANGER    IN   THE  BAZAAR. 

few  articles  for  sale,  such  as  ear  and  nose  drops,  rings  and 
brooches,  generally  contained  in  a  locked  show-case,  a  foot  square, 
and  the  same  in  height  ;  the  shop-keepers  exhibited  their  goods, 
but  did  not  press  them  for  sale  ;  many  of  them  stopped  work  to 
stare  at  us,  while  others  stuck  to  their  business  with  Oriental 
indifference.  A  small  anvil,  a  few  hammers,  pliers  and  rollers, 
and  a  small  fire  of  charcoal,  kept  in  flame  by  a  bellows  of  goat- 


DRIVING    A    BARGAIN.  289 

skin,  comprise  the  whole  outfit  of  a  workman.  The  entire  ar- 
rangement could  be  stowed  in  a  good-sized  hat. 

In  the  arms  bazaar  there  are  all  sorts  of  odds  and  ends  of 
cimeters,  matchlocks,  sabres,  pistols,  lances,  and  the  like.  The 
famous  Damascus  blades  were  offered  to  us,  but  they  were  not  of 
that  fine  temper  that  permits  you  to  tie  one  of  them  into  a  knot, 
and  so  we  did  not  buy.  An  antiquarian  would  be  at  home  in 
this  bazaar,  and  find  many  things  to  suit  his  fancy. 

We  went  to  the  silk  bazaar,  as  one  of  our  party  wanted  to  buy 
some  kerchiefs,  and  after  looking  around  we  went  out  of  the 
bazaar  into  a  Khan,  or  caravansary.  This  was  a  court,  with  a 
fountain  in  the  center.  A  double  story  of  little  rooms  opened 
into  this  court,  and  on  the  upper  floor  was  a  silk  merchant  we 
wished  to  find. 

The  bargaining  was  conducted  a  V Orient.  We  had  coffee  and 
cigarettes,  and  then  the  silks  were  shown. 

The  merchant  wanted  twenty  francs,  the  buyer  would  give  six. 

Neither  could  do  better,  but  they  slowly  unbent  so  that  at  the 
end  of  half  an  hour  the  prices  were  fifteen  selling  and  ten  buy- 
ing.    Then  we  bade  the  merchant  good-bye,  and  departed. 

We  returned  in  an  hour,  and  then  the  negotiations  went  on  ; 
the  seller  stuck  at  thirteen,  and  the  buyer  at  eleven  and  a  half, 
and  finally,  after  at  least  an  hour  of  talk  and  the  assurance  of  the 
merchant  that  the  kerchiefs  cost  him  more  than  that,  a  bargain 
was  closed  at  twelve. 

The  coup  de  grace  was  given  when  the  buyer  showed  the  money 
in  bright  Napoleons,  and  rattled  them  before  the  other's  eyes. 

The  silk  merchant  wanted  to  sell  something  more,  and  sent  his 
partner  or  attendant  to  bring  a  piece  of  goods  from  another 
room.  The  piece  came,  the  wrapping  was  removed,  and  behold  ! 
there  appeared  on  the  end  of  the  roll  a  ticket  with  the  name  of 
a  French  factory  at  Lyons. 

Much  of  the  silk  sold  in  Constantinople,  Cairo,  Damascus, 
Aleppo,  and  Bagdad,  as  Oriental,  is  from  French  looms.  I  have 
been  repeatedly  told  so  by  the  merchants,  and  also  by  an  agent 
of  one  of  the  houses  especially  devoted  to  Oriental  fabrics.  It 
requires  an  expert  to  distinguish  the  native  silks  from  the  French 
ones. 


CHAPTER     XXI. 


SYRIAN  LIFE— DEALERS  IN  HUMAN  FLESH— WE  TRY  "ZE  LUXU- 
RIES  OF  ZE  BATH." 

In  the  Slave-Market — A  Dealer  in  Human  Flesh — A  Stealthy  Trade — Examining 
Female  Slaves — Serfdom  in  Syria — Inside  Views  of  a  Syrian  Household — Jewish 
Houses — An  Oriental  Song — Smoking  with  the  Ladies — Syrian  Customs — A 
famous  Arab  Chief — Visiting  Abd-el-Kader's  house — The  City  of  the  Caliphs- 
Taking  a  Bath — Mohammed  and  his  Trowsers — A  new  Species  of  Cushion — The 
Bath-house — Disrobing — Securing  our  Valuables — Moslem  Honesty — Sitting  down 
in  a  Hot  Place — Gustave's  Misadventure — Undergoing  a  Shampoo — Rubbed  to  a 
Jelly — The  Couch  of  Repose — A  Delicious  Sensation — "All  ze  luxuries." 

WHILE  we  were  walking  through  the  bazaars,  the  guide 
casually  pointed  out  the  slave-market,  and  of  course  we 
entered.  Our  way  led  into  a  court  yard,  with  a  fountain  in  the 
center  and  a  mosque  at  our  side  ;  off  at  one  corner  was  the  en- 
trance to  the  slave-dealers'  apartments. 

The  merchant,  a  mild-mannered  Moslem,  was  in  the  court 
yard,  and  had  with  him  a  black  boy,  a  eunuch,  for  which  he 
wanted  thirty  pounds.  We  followed  the  dealer  up  a  narrow 
staircase  to  a  locked  room  which  he  opened. 

Four  negro  women  were  there,  two  sitting  and  two  lying  upon 
the  floor,  which  was  spread  with  rugs  and  blankets  ;  the  youngest 
may  have  been  sixteen  and  the  oldest  thirty.  The  dealer  said 
something  in  Arabic,  whereupon  the  women  rose  and  stood  in  a 
row  facing  us,  where  they  were  joined  by  the  boy.  All  kept 
their  heads  turned  away,  but  now  and  then  darted  furtive  glances 
at  us.  We  did  not  buy,  and  after  giving  the  dealer  a  couple  of 
francs  as  "  backsheesh,"  we  returned  to  the  street. 

(290) 


DEALING    IN    HUMAN    FLESH  ! 


291 


In  Damascus  the  slave  trade  is  open.  In  Cairo  and  Constan- 
tinople it  flourishes  by  stealth.  In  neither  of  the  last  two  cities 
are  strangers  permitted  to  see  it,  but  in  Damascus  there  is  no 
such  concealment.  The  trade  is  not  extensive,  and  is  mainly 
confined  to  supplying  servants  for  private  houses.  The  trafific  in 
beautiful  women  for  the  harems  is  nearly  a  thing  of  the  past,  and 
so  is  the  general  trade  in  slaves  for  heavy  labor  in  large  numbers. 

As  far  as  I  can  learn,  there  was  never  a  slave  trade  and  slave 
employment  half  as  extensive  in  the  Orient  as  that  which 
flourished  in  the  United    States  less  than  twenty  years  ago. 


FLAT  ROOFED  HOUSES — DAMASCUS. 

Slaves  in  the  East  are  a  family  possession,  and  are  not  reckoned 
as  a  specific  item  of  wealth. 

We  had  been  told  not  to  fail  to  see  some  of  the  private  houses 
of  Damascus,  as  they  are  specially  famous  for  their  elegance. 
To  wander  about  the  city  you  would  not  suppose  that  it  has  many 
rich  interiors,  but  you  find  on  investigation  that  mud  walls  fre- 
quently lead  to  something  rich  inside.  Judge  not  by  appear- 
ances in  Damascus.  We  entered  some  of  the  Moslem  court 
yards,  but  were  not  allowed  to  see  the  inside  of  the  houses.  We 
saw  some  Christian  houses  richly  adorned  and  decorated,  but 
they  will  all  come  within  the  general  description  at  the  beginning 
of  the  preceding  chapter. 


292  AN    ENTERTAINMENT    AT    A   JEWISH    HOUSE. 

There  were  many  luxurious  houses  of  Christian  natives  de- 
stroyed in  1 860,  and  few  of  these  have  been  built.  The  Chris- 
tian quarter  still  bears  the  marks  of  Moslem  hate,  in  the  large 
areas  that  lie  in  ruins.  The  whole  Christian  quarter  was  burned, 
and  about  two  thousand  five  hundred  Christians  were  massacred. 

Despite  the  protection  now  extended  to  them  by  foreign  pow- 
ers, the  Christians  of  Damascus  do  not  feel  safe,  and  are  con- 
stantly dreading  a  fresh  outbreak  of  hostilities. 

Two  Jewish  houses  that  we  visited  had  evidently  cost  a  great 
deal  of  money;  the  dining  room  of  one  is  finished  in  marble 
carving  around  the  entire  wall,  and  the  cost  of  this  one  apart- 
ment was  said  to  be  ten  thousand  pounds. 

In  one  of  the  Jewish  houses,  the  hostess  invited  us  to  seats  in 
the  room  where  herself,  the  ladies  of  her  household,  and  a  couple 
of  visitors  were  squatted  on  divans  and  smoking  nargilehs.  They 
were  much  surprised  that  the  lady  of  our  party  didn't  smoke,  and 
they  wanted  to  stain  her  nails  with  henna  and  paint  her  eye-lashes. 

One  of  the  lady  visitors  was  a  cantatrice,  the  Patti  or  Nilsson 
of  Damascus,  and  at  the  request  of  the  hostess  we  were  favored 
with  a  song.  Her  voice  was  a  sort  of  rough  falsetto,  and  there 
was  little  melody  or  rhythm  about  the  song  when  considered  from 
a  European  point  of  view.  How  tastes  differ!  Such  a  song 
would  not  be  listened  to  in  Europe  or  America,  except  from 
curiosity  ;  and  the  song  of  Patti  would,  doubtless,  be  of  no  con- 
sequence in  Damascus,  Our  guide  told  us  that  this  lady  has 
sung  herself  rich,  and  that  she  frequently  receives  twenty  or 
thirty  pounds  for  an  evening's  entertainment. 

We  passed  a  very  pleasant  hour  in  this  house,  and  shall  long 
hold  it  in  remembrance.  I  don't  believe  we  should  have  enjoyed 
it  half  as  well  if  the  master  had  been  at  home,  as  I  have  a  strong 
suspicion  that  we  should  not  have  been  invited  to  drink  coffee 
and  smoke  with  the  ladies. 

We  wished  to  visit  the  house  of  the  famous  Abd-el-Kader,  but 
found  it  impossible.  Twenty  years  ago,  this  man  filled  a  prom- 
inent place  in  history,  but  he  is  now  nearly  forgotten.  He  was 
born  in  1807  in  Algeria ;  he  was  descended  from  a  long  line  of 
Emirs ;  his  father  was  noted  for  the  wisdom  and  liberality  of  his 
rule  over  the  Algerian  province  of  Oran. 


ABD-EL-KADER. 


293 


When  the  French  occupied  Algiers,  Abd-el-Kader  was  one  of 
their  fiercest  opponents,  and  from  1831  to  1847  he  maintained 
an  active  warfare,  interrupted  by  a  few  brief  truces.  In  the  last 
mentioned  year  he  was  captured  and  taken  to  France,  but  was 
soon  released,  on  condition  that  he  should  not  return  to  Algiers, 
nor  take  arms  in  any  way  against  the  French.  The  terms  of  the 
contract  have  been  faithfully  kept,  and  he  has  ever  since  been 
on  the  best  terms  with  France.  He  resided  for  some  years  in 
Constantinople,  and  then 
moved  to  Damascus,  where 
he  spends  the  greater  part 
of  his  time.  He  continues 
to  wear  the  Algerian  dress, 
and  his  dark  hair  and  beard 
make  a  striking  contrast  to 
his  snow-white  garments 
Those  who  have  met  him 
say  that  he  is  a  thoroughly 
courteous  and  highly 
polished  gentleman,  and  in 
looks  and  bearing  he  is 
"  every  inch  a  king." 

Damascus  is  the  most 
thoroughly  Oriental  in 
character  of  all  the  cities 
now  in  easy  reach  of  the 
traveler.  Constantinople 
and  Cairo  have  each  a 
large  foreign  population, 
and   can  number   their 

Franks  by  thousands,  but  Damascus  has  less  than  a  hundred  of 
them,  including  missionaries,  merchants,  and  nondescript  Occi- 
dentals, who  have  wandered  there  by  chance.  The  houses,  ba- 
zaars, mosques  and  baths  are  to-day  what  they  were  five  hundred 
years  ago,  and  the  Moslem  is  so  averse  to  progress,  that  there  is 
no  great  probability  of  any  important  change  for  five  hundred 
years  to  come. 

As  you  wander  through  the  streets  of  Damascus  or  stand  in 


ARD-EL-KADER. 


294  WE    ARE    "EARLY    BIRDS.  . 

its  crowded  market  places,  you  are  carried  back  to  the  days  of 
Haroun-al-Raschid,  and  gaze  upon  the  pictures  that  became  fam- 
ihar  to  you  in  your  boyhood  perusal  of  the  Arabian  Nights. 
You  forget  the  Present,  you  are  Hving  in  the  Past,  and,  full  of 
bewilderment,  you  scan  the  title  page  of  your  note-book  to  make 
sure  that  you  really  tread  the  earth  in  the  latter  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century. 

I  had  missed  the  Turkish  bath  in  Constantinople  ;  I  could 
have  taken  one  any  morning  and  therefore  postponed  it  until  too 
late.  In  Damascus  I  determined  not  to  be  so  negligent,  and  ac- 
cordingly arranged  to  try  the  Oriental  bath  on  the  second  day  of 
my  stay,  Gustave  agreed  to  go  with  me,  and  we  consulted  our 
guide  about  the  time  and  place.  Imagine  our  astonishment  when 
Mohammed  informed  us : 

"  You  must  get  up  at  five  o'clock  in  ze  morning  and  I  takes 
you  to  ze  bestest  bath  in  Damas.  Ze  bath  shut  up  at  seven 
o'clock,  and  you  get  no  bath  then  afterwards." 

This  was  early  rising  for  us,  but  when  you  are  in  Damascus 
you  must  follow  the  custom  of  the  Damascus  blades.  If,  as  the 
proverb  says,  the  early  child  has  the  worms,  there  must  be  an 
immense  demand  in  Damascus  for  vermifuge  and  that  sort  of 
thing.  We  couldn't  do  any  sight-seeing  in  the  evening,  for  the 
reason  that  there  was  no  sight-seeing  to  see.  Shops,  cafes,  and 
all  other  public  establishments,  were  closed  at  sunset  or  a  little 
later ;  there  were  no  street  lamps,  and  the  facilities  for  getting  about 
were  very  limited.  We  stayed  in  the  hotel  in  the  evening,  and 
went  to  bed  at  an  hour  we  would  have  been  ashamed  to  acknowledge 
at  home.  The  people  that  went  to  bed  at  such  an  inhumanly  early 
hour  must  rise  in  good  season.  They  do  this  not  from  any  ex- 
pectation of  health  or  wealth,  as  promised  by  the  old  couplet,  but 
simply  for  the  reason  that  they  couldn't  endure  to  be  in  bed  more 
than  eight  or  nine  hours  at  a  stretch ;  besides  an  Arab  couch  is 
not  the  most  comfortable  thing  in  the  world,  and  doubtless  has 
something  to  do  with  the  matutinal  habits  of  the  people. 

It  is  said  that  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Mediterranean  is  called  the 
Levant,  for  the  reason  that  the  sun  rises  there.  The  natives  rise 
before  the  sun,  and  to  them  rather  than  to  the  glorious  orb  of 
day  is  due  the  name  by  which  the  region  is  known. 


"WE  PREPARE  FOR  "  ZE  BESTEST  BATH.  295 

Promptly  at  five  in  the  morning  Mohammed  was  at  our  door 
and  we  rose.  Day  was  just  beginning  to  dawn  when  we  emerged 
from  the  hotel  and  started  along  the  narrow  streets  that  led  to 
the  bath-house.  We  kept  close  to  Mohammed's  heels,  and  nar- 
rowly missed  stepping  on  the  seat  of  his  trowsers  whenever  he 
slackened  his  pace.  The  fellow's  "breeks"  were  about  the  bag- 
giest pair  it  was  ever  my  lot  to  gaze  upon  ;  he  must  have  bought 
them  when  cloth  was  cheap  and  the  merchant  willing  to  measure 
him  with  a  fox-skin  without  counting  the  tail  as  anything.  When 
he  stood  up,  the  amj^le  part  of  his  trowsers  just  missed  the 
ground  by  an  inch  or  so,  and  when  he  walked  the  depending 
mass  of  cloth  swung  unsteadily  like  a  pendulum  that  has  been  on 
a  spree.  When  he  went  over  any  little  inequality  the  garment 
dragged,  and  sometimes  it  caught  and  held  the  wearer  fast.  When 
he  sat  down  he  gathered  the  trowsers  under  him  and  formed 
a  sort  of  cushion  that  was  comfortable  to  rest  upon.  It  was 
then  that  we  realized  the  design  of  the  artist,  and  admitted 
that  the  inventor  of  the  Turkish  trowsers  knew  what  he  was 
about. 

A  good  many  people  were  astir,  and  more  than  once  we  caromed 
against  the  plodding  Orientals  and  caused  them  to  utter  what 
sounded  like  imprecations  on  the  Christian  dogs  that  had  ventured 
to  affront  them.  At  length  Mohammed  brought  himself  to  a 
halt  and  said : 

"  Here,  gentlemen,  is  ze  bath  ;  ze  best  good  bath  in  Damas. 
You  bathe  here  so  good  as  never  was  afterward  before." 

The  building  was  a  low  one,  of  stone,  with  a  roof  in  which  two 
or  three  domes  were  set  like  enormous  kettles  inverted.  Light 
was  admitted  through  circular  windows,  or  bull's-eyes,  like  the 
cabin  windows  of  an  ocean  steamer,  let  into  the  don^e  at  intervals 
none  too  frequent.  In  the  vestibule  we  encountered  a  sort  of 
door-keeper,  to  whom  Mohammed  said  something  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  country,  and  then  passed  on  to  the  first  room  of  the 
bath. 

"  Here  is  ze  bain  beautiful.  You  shall  know  soon  how  he  is 
good." 

With  that  Mohammed  selected  a  couple  of  attendants  whose 
entire  wardrobe  was  not  worth  fifty  cents  each.     It  consisted  of 


296 


WE    STRIP    TO   "  ZE    BUFF. 


a  small  tuft  of  hair  on  the  crown  of  the  head,  the  rest  of  the 
skull  being  closely  shaven,  and  of  a  piece  of  cloth  about  the  loins. 
I  fell  to  the  lot    of  a   dark-skinned   gentleman    any   way  from 

twenty-five  to  forty  years  old, 


and  with  a  muscular  develop- 
ment about  the  arms  that 
would  have  done  honor  to  a 
pugilist.  He  assisted  me  to 
disrobe,  but  was  not  very  ex- 
pert about  it,  being  unfamiliar 
with  the  wardrobe  of  the  Occi- 
dent. 

"  You  will  have  ze  bain  avec 
all  ze  luxuries, — ze  caf^,  ze  chi- 
book,  ze  everyting,"  said  Mo- 
hammed in  a  tone  of  inquiry. 
"  Certainly,  mon  cher  de- 
scendant of  the  Prophet,"  I   replied,  "  and  you  will  do  us   the 

with  us.  Order  baths  for 
three,  and  you  yourself  dis- 
encumber your  corporosity 
of  those  habiliments  and 
show  us  how  to  Orientalize." 
"  Pardon,  gentlemens,  but 
I  no  speak  German  ;  only 
English,  French,  Italian, 
Greek,  Turk,  and  Arab.  I 
no  understand  what  you  says. 
Speak  ze  English,  please." 

"  Well   then  ;     peel — strip 
cff  your  clothes  and  go  in." 

"  Ah  !  zat  is  bono,"  replied 
Mohammed,  and  beckoning 
to  a  third  attendant,  he  was 
soon  in  the  costume  of  the  Apollo  Belvidere.  My  attendant,  as 
soon  as  he  had  stripped  me,  folded  my  clothes  into  a  bundle,  tied 
them  up  in  a  small  sheet,  and  laid  the  package  away  on  a  divan 
at  the  side  of  the  room. 


WE    "  STRIP   TO   ZE   BUFF. 


honor  to  go   through  the  viotilin 


'YOU    WILL   HAVE    ALL  ZE   LUXURIES.' 


AND    ENTER   "  ZE    BAIN    BEAUTIFUL. 


297 


WE   ENTER    "ZE    BAIX    BEAUTIFUL." 


I  asked  Mohammed   if  everything  was   safe,  as  we  had  our 
watches  and  some,  though  not  mucli,  money.     We  had  given  our 
letters  of  credit  and  the  most  of  our  coin  to  our  friends  before 
retiring  the  night  previous, 
as  we  thought  some  acci- 
dent might   happen  if    we 
left  things  around  loose  in 
the  bath-house. 

"  All  tings  is  safe  here," 
explained  our  guide.  "  Zare 
is  no  Christians  but  you  in 
ze  house.  All  ze  rest  is 
Moslem,  and  all  tings  is 
safe." 

Thus  reassured,  we  sub- 
mitted to  the  situation. 
When  they  had  removed 
our  clothing  they  dressed 

us  in  towels  around  the  loins  and  wrapped  wet  cloths  about 
our  heads.  Then  they  mounted  us  on  wooden  clogs  that  were 
difficult  to  keep  in  place, 
and  which  I  kicked  off  in 
the  next  room  whither  my 
attendant  led  me.  The 
place  was  gloomy  and  full 
of  steam,  and  the  tempera- 
ture anything  but  agree- 
able. It  was  heated  by  a 
furnace  under  the  floor,  and 
the  heat  was  carried  around 
and  made  even  by  means 
of  pipes  and  flues  in  the 
wall.  While  we  stood  un- 
certain what  to  do,  two  or 
three  buckets  of  water  were 
dashed  over  us.  I  was  not  expecting  it,  and  the  shock  of  the 
water  striking  me  in  the  breast  was  sufficient  to  knock  me  down. 
I  fell  against  Mohammed  and  he  against  his  attendant,  and  we 


ONE  OF  THE   LUXURIES. 


298 


WE    ENJOY    "ZE    BATH. 


all  went  into  a  heap.  Mohammed  was  fat  and  rather  flabby,  so 
that  he  broke  my  fall  in  the  most  satisfactory  manner.  It  hurt 
him  somewhat,  but  that  made  no  difference,  as  we  hired  him  by 
the  day  and  paid  his  expenses. 

In  one  corner  a  lot  of 
fellows  were  sitting  on  the 
floor  and  softening  the  as- 
perities- of  the  bath  by  sing- 
ing an  Arab  air.  Moham- 
med said  they  were  soldiers, 
but  there  wasn't  one  of 
them  with  any  more  uni- 
form than  we  wore,  and 
certainly  ours  was  very 
scanty.  We  looked  and 
listened,  perspired  and 
waited,  and  just  as  the 
SOFTENING  THE  ASPERITIES.  placc  began  to  seem  com- 

fortable the  attendants  led 
us  into  another  room  compared  to  which  the  first  was  a  refriger- 
ator.    It  was  frightfully  hot  and  took  away  the  breath,  and  if  I 

had    considered  myself   a 

free  moral  agent  I  would 
have  backed  out. 

Gustave  thought  he 
would  sit  down,  and  seeing 
a  block  of  marble  through 
the  steamy  atmosphere,  he 
went  for  it.  Before  the 
attendant  knew  what  he 
was  about  Gustave  had 
taken  a  seat. 

My  duty  to    the   moral 
and   religious    public   re- 
quires the  omission  of  the 
remarks  of   my  friend  im- 
mediately subsequent  to  his  assumption  of  the   sitting  posture. 
They  were  made  in  German,  English,  and  French,  and  were 
brief  and  emphatic. 


A   HOT   ONE. 


AND    "ALL    ZE    LUXURIES.  299 

What  he  supposed  to  be  a  block  of  stone  proved  to  be  a  mar- 
ble tub  filled  with  water.  The  temperature  was  sufficiently  ele- 
vated to  cause  him  to  howl  with  pain,  but  it  did  no  real  damage. 

We  squatted  in  a  group  on  the  floor  after  lifting  Gustave  from 
his  tub,  and  there  we  sat  puffing  and  perspiring  for  some  ten  min- 
utes or  more.  Then  my  attendant  laid  me  on  a  stone  bench  and 
put  me  through  what  is  called  the  "  shampoo."  He  squeezed, 
and  rubbed  and  pulled  and  pounded  till  I  was  as  limp  as 
a  boned  turkey  and  possessed  as  much  consistency  as  a  jelly 
fish.  I  expected  to  spread  out  and  run  over  the  sides  of  the 
bench  and  I  took  a  glance  downward  to  see  if  there  was  danger 
of  running  off  through  the  waste  pipes.  I  called  faintly  to  Mo- 
hammed, and  heard  a  husky  "  Monsieur"  in  response. 

"  Have  the  goodness,"  I  said,  "  to  ask  this  gentleman  to  put  me 
in  a  sack  if  he  wants  to  rub  me  any  more.  Any  sack  with  small 
meshes  will  do,  but  I  want  it  tight  enough  to  keep  me  together. 

"  And  Mohammed,"  I  added,  "  if  there  is  a  rolling  mill  or  a 
wire-drawing  establishment  handy  he  could  facilitate  matters  by 
running  me  through  it,  and  then" — 

A  bucket  of  hot  water  was  poured  over  me,  and  some  of  it  en- 
tering my  mouth  put  an  end  to  my  appeals  for  mercy.  I  was 
soon  let  off  and  taken  into  the  first  room,  where  several  buckets 
of  water  each  cooler  than  its  predecessor  were  thrown  over  me. 
Then  I  was  wiped  dry,  and  a  cool  dry  turban  was  wrapped  around 
my  head,  and  I  was  clothed  in  a  white  garment,  and  laid  away  on 
a  divan.  Blankets  were  wrapped  around  me,  and  coffee  and  a 
chibook  were  brought.  Gustave  was  similarly  mummified  and 
placed  near  me,  and  Mohammed  was  stowed  away  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  room.  We  reclined  there  smoking  and  sipping  coffee, 
sipping  coffee  and  smoking,  talking  and  drowsing,  drowsing  and 
talking,  for  nearly  an  hour.  Coffee  was  never  more  delicious  than 
then,  and  I  solemnly  aver  that  I  never  had  more  enjoyment  of  a 
pipe.  The  long  stem  of  the  chibook  allows  the  smoke  to  cool 
before  it  reaches  the  mouth,  and  there  was  a  delicate  flavor  to 
the  tobacco  that  adapted  it  to  the  listless  condition  of  mind  and 
limp  condition  of  body  which  follows  the  bath. 

We  dressed,  paid  our  "  backsheesh,"  and  departed  happy  in 
mind  and  body  over  "  ze  bestest  good  bath  in  Damas." 

19 


CHAPTER     XXII 


TRAVELING  IN  A  CARAVAN— SIGHTS  ON  THE  WAY. 

Turning  our  faces  eastward — The  land  of  the  Sun — PalmvTa,  Bagdad,  and  Babylon — 
The  desert  in  summer  and  winter — A  dangerous  road — The  Robbers  of  the  Wil- 
derness— Ruins  in  the  Desert — A  city  of  wonders — The  haunts  of  the  Bedouins 
— Engaging  an  escort — The  start  for  Palmyra — On  a  Dromedary's  back — The  en- 
virons of  Damascus — A  bed  on  the  sand — "Everyone  to  his  taste"— A  knav- 
ish Governor — Winking  at  Robbery — In  the  Desert — On  the  great  caravan  track 
— Caravansaries,   what  are  they  ? — The  high  road  to  India — An  Arab  fountairu 

HOW  I  longed,  when  at  Damascus,  to  push  further  into  Asia, 
Before  me  lay  the  land  of  the  Arabian  nights — the  valley 
of  the  Euphrates  and  of  the  Tigris  ;  beyond  the  horizon  my  im- 
agination pictured  the  battlemented  walls  of  Bagdad,  her  white 
domes  and  arrowy  minarets  shining  among  the  waving  palms. 
I  walked  her  streets  once  trodden  by  the  feet  of  Haroun-al-Ras- 
chid  and  made  familiar  in  the  stories  that  w^ere  written  in  his 
time  and — if  we  may  believe  our  tradition — for  his  entertainment. 
I  fancied  myself  upon  the  site  of  Babylon  or  of  Nineveh,  and 
amid  the  crumbled  ruins  of  those  once  powerful  cities  that  rep- 
resented the  grandeur  and  greatness  of  the  ancient  East. 

I  followed  the  story  of  Xenophon  in  the  retreat  of  the  Ten 
Thousand,  and  stood  upon  the  ground  where  Alexander  marched 
to  the  glory  that  made  him  The  Great.  I  was  upon  the  thresh- 
old— yes,  I  had  passed  the  portals — of  that  part  of  the  East 
which  has  suffered  least  from  the  progress  and  enterprise  of  the 
Occident.  With  longing  eyes  I  looked  beyond  the  rising  sun  and 
wished,  oh,  how  I  wished,  that  I  might  go  on  and  on  till  I  should 

300 


ANYTHING    BUT    MURDER.  3OI 

tread  the  soil  of  Ormuz  or  of  Ind,  and  feel  upon  my  brow  the  spice- 
laden  breezes  of  fair  Cathay. 

But  fate  was  inexorable  and  many  things  conspired  to  prevent 
my  further  progress.  We  had  arranged  to  keep  together  till  we 
reached  Egypt ;  the  rest  of  the  party  were  pressed  for  time 
and  had  determined  upon  Damascus  as  the  Ultima  Thule  of  their 
journey.  The  season  was  not  favorable  for  an  overland  excur- 
sion as  we  might  be  caught  in  winter  storms  in  the  desert,  and 
furthermore  the  robbers  were  more  dangerous  then  than  in  the 
summer.  From  Damascus  it  is  customary  to  travel  with  a  cara- 
van under  a  heavy  escort,  and  there  would  be  no  caravan  for  sev- 
eral months.  The  authorities  will  sometimes  give  an  escort  and 
be  responsible  for  the  safety  of  the  traveller,  but  such  an  outfit 
costs  heavily  and  requires  a  very  long  purse.  Arrangements  can 
be  made  to  ride  with  the  fortnightly  mail  from  Damascus  to  Bag- 
dad, but  there  are  various  objections  to  this  mode  of  journeying. 

I  thought  over  all  the  obstacles  in  my  way  and  concluded  that 
it  was  best  to  keep  with  our  party  and  go  on  to  Palestine  and 
Egypt.  Among  the  reasons  which  impelled  me  to  this  decision 
was  the  fact  that  I  had  neither  time  nor  money  enough  to  go 
farther  East,  and  besides  I  should  be  cut  off  from  the  society  of 
the  "  Doubter."  I  might  get  along  without  money  by  setting  up 
as  a  dervish  and  begging  my  way,  but  could  existence  be  possi- 
ble without  our  skeptic .-'     Consequently  I  must  go  to  Egvpt. 

Even  Palmyra  had  to  be  given  up,  and,  sighing,  I  turned  my 
face  to  the  west.  But  I  fell  in  with  a  French  traveller,  who  had 
come  overland  from  Bagdad  and  spent  a  day  at  Palmyra,  and  I 
listened  with  boyish  interest  to  his  account  of  what  he  saw  there. 

It  is  no  small  matter  to  reach  Palmyra,  for  the  reason  that  it 
stands  in  the  midst  of  desolate  wastes,  which  are  the  possession 
or  at  all  events  the  "  backsheeshing  "  ground  of  the  most  lawless 
of  the  Bedouin  Arabs  They  have  no  conscientious  scruples 
about  robbery  ;  the  only  point  in  their  favor  is  that  they  are 
averse  to  shedding  blood,  and  unless  he  offers  resistance,  the 
traveller  can  feel  as  certain  about  saving  his  life  as  he  is  of  losing 
his  property.  They  may  strip  him  of  everything  and  leave  him 
naked,  on  foot,  and  without  food  or  drink  in  the  middle  of  the 
desert,  but  they  have  qualms  of  conscience  about  murder,  though 


302  BEDOUIN   SHEIKS,   WHAT   ARE    THEY  ? 

quite  willing  their  victim  should  starve  or  roast  to  death.  Those 
who  assert  that  the  Bedouins  are  heartless  and  cruel,  should  take 
note  of  the  above  fact,  and  make  an  ample  apology  if  they  have 
hitherto  said  anything  uncomplimentary  about  these  plundering 
blackguards. 

It  is  absolutely  necessary  to  have  an  escort  in  going  to  Pal- 
myra, and  one  can  be  found  among  the  Bedouin  sheiks,  loafing 
around  Damascus.  Under  their  convoy  the  traveller  can  con- 
sider himself  secure  ;  they  are  pretty  honorable  in  this  respect, 
and  after  getting  a  heavy  "  backsheesh  "  for  safe  conduct,  they  carry 
out  their  contracts,  though  they  expect  an  additional  "  backsheesh  " 
on  their  return  and  the  delivery  of  the  traveller  to  himself,  in 
good  order  and  condition.  It  is  better  to  leave  money  and  valu- 
ables in  Damascus,  taking  only  enough  coin  along  to  pay  trifling 
expenses,  and  leaving  the  compensation  of  escort  and  dragoman 
at  the  banker's  or  consulate.  If  you  are  going  overland  to  Bag- 
dad, carry  your  money  in  drafts  and  circular  notes,  and  not  in 
gold.  The  Bedouin  has  a  sharp  eye  for  money,  and  much  coin  is 
sure  to  attract  it. 

The  Palmyra  journey  s^iould  be  made  with  camels  or  drome- 
daries, for  the  reason  that  there  are  long  stretches  without  water. 
Horses  may  be  ridden,  but  there  must  be  one  or  more  camels  at 
any  rate  to  carry  water  for  them.  The  sheiks  always  prefer  to 
take  no  horses,  as  they  can  thereby  make  the  journey  more 
quickly,  and  consequently  cheaper. 

Well,  let  us  suppose  we  are  going  to  Palmyra.  We  have  com- 
pleted all  our  arrangements,  agreed  upon  the  price  to  be  paid, 
and  how  to  pay  it,  have  arrayed  ourselves  in  Oriental  garments, 
mounted  our  dromedaries,  and  filed  out  of  the  city.  There  may 
be  a  difificulty  in  obtaining  a  sufficient  number  of  dromedaries 
for  the  start,  and  in  that  case  we  ride  horses  to  Kuryetien,  about 
two  days'  journey  from  Damascus.  There  the  sheik  will  have 
the  necessary  animals  assembled  and  waiting  our  arrival. 

We  strike  away  to  the  northeastward,  going  at  first  along  a 
paved  road  and  among  the  groves  and  gardens  for  which  the 
country  around  Damascus  is  famous.  We  meet  crowds  of  people 
on  their  way  to  town,  and  accompanied  by  camels  and  donkeys 
bearing  the  produce  of  the  farms.     In  some  seasons  of  the  year 


EVERY    MAN    TO    HIS    TASTE.  303 

we  will  meet  long  strings  of  camels,  which  have  come  from  Bag- 
dad, laden  with  dates,  silks,  leather  goods,  and  other  merchandise 
from  that  city ;  there  may  be  dozens  of  these  in  a  single  party, 
and  sometimes  there  may  be  hundreds  of  them.  The  drivers  are 
brown,  and  not  over  clean  ;  water  has  been  a  scarce  article 
among  them,  and  the  rivers  of  Damascus  are  to  their  eyes  a  most 
welcome  sight.  One  would  think  that  the  privations  of  the 
desert  would  inspire  no  great  love  for  the  arid  waste,  and  yet 
these  wild  Arabs  are  so  attached  to  it  that  they  make  their  stay 
in  the  city  as  brief  as  possible,  and  the  moment  their  business  is 
ended  they  hasten  back  to  their  wanderings  in  the  wilderness. 

"  Give  me  a  pillow  of  snow,"  said  a  Laplander,  breathing  his 
last  in  a  Southern  clime,  "  and  I  shall  die  happy." 

"  Give  me  my  bed  of  sand  in  the  desert,"  says  the  Bedouin  Arab, 
"  and  I  shall  sleep  in  peace." 

Every  man  to  his  own  liking.  Tastes  are  different  all  the 
world  over. 

Ten  or  twelve  miles  from  Damascus,  we  leave  the  groves  and 
shady  gardens,  and  emerge  upon  a  plain  irrigated  by  the  waters 
of  the  Barada.  The  plain  is  cultivated,  though  generally  desti- 
tute of  arboreal  productions,  and  here  and  there  are  the  little 
clumps  of  trees  where  the  houses  of  the  farmers  are  embowered. 
We  passed  some  villages  in  the  groves  ;  we  see  a  little  hamlet 
on  the  plain  to  our  right,  but  evidently  we  were  not  likely  to  find 
a  dense  population.  Now  we  leave  the  plain  and  ascend  a  some- 
what rugged  path  along  a  barren  and  rounded  mountain  which 
attains  an  elevation  of  nearly  two  thousand  feet  above  the  valley 
of  the  Barada.  In  an  hour  or  so  we  reach  the  pass,  and  at  the 
ruin  of  an  old  caravansary  we  look  down  upon  a  plain  which 
stretches  away  like  an  ocean  and  fills  the  eastern  horizon. 

Five  villages  are  in  sight ;  they  are  the  homes  of  the  people 
that  cultivate  portions  of  this  plain.  Wheat  and  barley  are  the 
principal  products  of  the  plain,  and  they  find  a  market  in  Damas- 
cus. The  inhabitants  are  peaceable,  but  their  frequent  encoun- 
ters with  Bedouin  plunderers  have  made  them  acquainted  with 
the  use  of  weapons,  and  give  them  a  rather  warlike  appearance. 
They  dress  much  like  the  Bedouins,  and  a  stranger  finds  it  diffi- 
cult to  distinguish  one  from  the  other. 


304  A    NIGHT    WITH    THE    BEDOUINS. 

The  first  night  of  the  journey  is  usually  spent  at  Jerud,  a 
large  village,  which  is  the  capital  of  the  province  and  the  dwell- 
ing place  of  a  Turkish  agha  or  petty  governor.  He  has  a  com- 
pany of  cavalry  at  his  command  to  resist  the  Bedouin  Arabs,  and 
not  unfrequently  has  occasion  to  use  them.  It  is  hinted  that  he 
sometimes  shuts  his  eyes  while  a  foray  is  in  progress,  and  begins 
the  pursuit  when  the  plunderers  have  reached  a  secure  distance. 
Of  course  the  robbers  are  expected  to  do  the  square  thing  under 
such  circumstances,  and  make  an  honorable  division  of  the  spoils. 
But  we  should  not  listen  to  such  calumnies,  as  we  expect  to  stop 
over  night  in  the  governor's  house,  and  as  long  as  we  are  under 
his  roof  we  receive  every  hospitality.  The  assemblage  is  a  mixed 
one,  as  there  are  Arabs  from  half-a-dozen  tribes  spending  the 
night  there,  and  we  are  expected  to  show  no  haughtiness  in  any 
way.  The  man  who  goes  around  with  his  nose  in  the  air  will 
run  the  risk  of  a  snub  from  some  of  his  fellow-guests. 

Out  of  Jerud  we  go  in  the  morning  at  a  pretty  early  hour,  and 
very  soon  we  are  in  the  Desert.  We  have  left  the  fertile  country 
behind  us,  and  before  and  around  we  have  the  treeless  and  deso- 
late waste.  We  are  in  a  wide  valley  bounded  by  bleak  and  bar- 
ren hills  whose  sides  present  an  unvarying  panorama  of  grey 
rocks  and  earth.  The  ground  is  not  sandy,  but  is  covered  with 
fragments  of  limestone  and  flint,  and  now  and  then  we  see  a 
little  tuft  of  coarse  grass  struggling  to  maintain  an  existence,  and 
evidently  doubtful  about  keeping  it  up. 

Birds  and  beasts  are  rare  ;  in  fact  there  is  no  inducement  for 
them  to  stay  there.  When  speaking  of  birds  in  such  a  locality, 
I  am  reminded  of  the  story  of  a  traveller  at  an  unpromising 
place  somewhere  in  Utah  or  Nevada.  He  entered  the  dining- 
room  of  the  only  hotel  and  asked  for  breakfast. 

"  Can  give  you  beefsteak,  fried  ham,  and  curlew,"  said  the  land- 
lord, whose  beard  resembled  an  inverted  sage-bush,  and  whose 
belt  revealed  a  bowie-knife  and  revolver.  And  he  added,  "The 
curlew  is  very  good." 

"  What  is  curlew  .'' "  said  the  wayfarer. 

"It  is  a  bird  that  we  shoot  round  here." 

"  Has  it  got  any  wings  .''" 

"  Yes." 


THE  GREAT  CARAVAN  ROUTE. 


305 


"And  can  it  fly  ?" 

"  You  bet  it  can  fly  !  " 

"  Then  bring  me  some  beefsteak,"  said  the  traveller,  emphati- 
cally. "  I  want  nothing  to  do  with  a  bird  that  would  stay  in  this 
miserable  country  when  he  could  fly  away  from  it.  No  curlew  in 
mine,  if  you  please." 

Three  or  four  miles  from  Jerud  we  pass  a  village  where  there 
is  a  fountain,  and  then  for  nearly  thirty  miles  the  road  follows  the 
desert  valley  as  before.  A  hot  sky  above,  bleak  mountains  on 
either  hand,  before  us  an 
undulating  plain,  shut  in 
by  these  mountains,  and 
beneath  our  feet  the 
gravelly,  flinty,  verdure- 
less  soil,  and  our  caravan 
slowly  winding  onward, 
form  the  scene  presented 
to  our  eyes.  Can  we  be- 
lieve that  this  route  has 
had  an  existence  for  cen- 
turies ? 

Thousands  and  thou- 
sands of  years — history 
does  not  tell  us  for  how 
long — this  way  has  been 
trodden  by  the  feet  of 
patient  camels  and  less 
patient  men.  It  was  the 
caravan  route  from  Damascus  to  the  opulent  East.  Ages  and 
ages  ago  began  and  flourished  a  commerce  now  greatly  decayed  ; 
as  we  look  from  the  backs  of  our  beasts  of  burden  we  see  here 
and  there  the  ruins  of  castles  and  caravansaries  which  once 
formed  the  halting  places  of  the  merchants  when  night  overtook 
them,  protected  them  against  robbers,  and  in  turn,  perhaps,  pro- 
tected the  robbers  and  sent  out  predatory  bands  for  purposes  of 
plunder.  Once  this  was  the  great  road  to  India  and  Far  Cathay, 
long  before  the  sea  routes  were  known,  and  when  navigation  was 
in  its  most  primitive  state.     Steam  and  sail  and  the  mariner's 


WHAT    IS   CURLEW  ?" 


306  GIRDLED    BY    ARABS. 

compass  have  laid  a  destroying  hand  on  the  caravan  traffic,  and 
in  place  of  the  myriad  trains  of  camels  that  once  moved  along 
this  mountain-girdled  valley  we  find  now  but  a  comparatively 
thin  thread  of  commerce.     The  world  is  a  world  of  progress. 

We  reach  Kuryetein,  a  large  village  occupied  by  Moslems  and 
Christians  in  the  proportion  of  two  to  one.  It  is  in  the  same 
valley  we  have  traversed  all  the  way  from  Jerud,  which  continues 
to  Palmyra,  forty  miles  further  on.  Here  is  an  oasis  in  the 
Desert;  a  fountain  bursts  from  the  end  of  a  low  spur  which  juts 
out  of  the  mountain  range  and  touches  one  end  of  the  village. 
It  is  quite  possible  that  the  man  who  declared  it  remarkable  that 
great  rivers  run  by  large  cities  might  insist  that  there  is  a  foun- 
tain near  Kuryetein  and  dispute  our  assertion  that  Kuryetein  is 
near  a  large  fountain  ;  but  we  wont  be  particular  about  words,  as 
we  are  to  stop  here  over  night  and  want  to  have  a  peaceful  time 
of  it,  to  prepare  us  for  the  fatigues  of  to-morrow. 

The  water  from  the  fountain  is  carried  in  little  canals  by  a 
very  careful  system  of  irrigation  over  a  considerable  extent  of 
ground,  and  creates  fertility  in  what  would  otherwise  be  a  barren 
waste.  Kuryetein  is  in  the  country  of  the  Bedouins,  and  these 
Arabs  frequently  come  and  camp  near  the  village  on  account  of 
the  water  that  constantly  flows  there.  They  bring  their  flocks 
and  herds  and  constitute  themselves  a  general  nuisance,  as  they 
are  not  particular  about  camping  grounds  and  take  the  first  place 
they  can  find,  without  much  regard  for  the  owner's  rights.  If  I 
were  obliged  to  live  in  a  village  situated  as  this  is,  and  under  all 
its  disadvantages,  I  would  move  away  at  once. 

The  broken  columns  and  large  stones,  hewn  and  squared,  lying 
around,  indicate  beyond  a  doubt  that  a  city  of  importance  once 
stood  here,  but  the  most  diligent  inquirer  can  learn  nothing  of 
the  inhabitants  concerning  the  place.  It  stood  there  as  far  back 
as  they  can  remember,  and  that  is  all  they  know  about  it. 


•i^^. 


CHAPTER     XXIII. 

TENT-LIFE  AMONG  THE  BEDOUINS.— THE  WARRIORS  OF  THE 

DESERT. 


Among  the  Bedouins — A  Genuine  Son  of  the  Desert — High-toned  Robbers — A  Sam- 
ple of  Bedouin  Hospitality — Etiquette  in  an  Arab  ICncampmtnt — A  Ca^e  of  In- 
sult— Tent-life  and  its  Freedom — A  Nation  of  Cavalry-Warriors — Bedouin  Dres-s, 
Manners  and  Customs — Their  Horses  and  Weapons — A  Singular  Custom — A 
Caricature  Steed  and  his  Rider — Arab  Scare-Crows — On  the  Road  to  Palmyra — 
A  Mountain  of  Ruins — The  Grand  Colonnade — The  Temple  of  the  Sun — A  Build- 
ing Half  a  Mile  in  Circumference — An  Earthquake,  and  what  it  did — The  City  of 
the  Caliphs. 


w: 


E  are  sure  to  see  some  of  the  real  Bedouins  of  the  Desert 
during  our  stay  here,  and  this  will  be  a  good  place  to  learn 
something  about  them. 

The  real,  untamed  Bedouin  differs  from  the  shabby  counter- 
feit we  see  around  Jerusalem  and  Beyrout  as  a  five  dollar  gold 
piece  differs  from  a  bogus  cent.  The  real  Bedouin  rides  a  fine 
horse  (which  is  almost  always  a  mare),  and  he  gets  himself  up 
in  a  style  sufficiently  gorgeous  to  be  a  partial  compensation  to 
the  traveller  for  being  robbed  by  him.  He  is  a  dignified,  high- 
toned  thief,  and  transacts  business  on  the  square;  he  is  never 
impolite,  even  when  plundering  you,  and  his  hospitality  is  un- 
bounded. 

When  you  go  to  a  Bedouin  encampment  you  must  stop  at  the 
first  tent ;  if  you  pass  it  by  for  a  better  looking  one  you  will 
offer  the  owner  an  affront  he  cannot  easily  forget,  and  ten  to  one 
he  will  come  around  and  ask  you  to  step  out  on  the  sidewalk  and 
and  have  a  little  pugilism  a  la  Bcdoiiiji.     They  wisely  put  the 

(307) 


308 


A    BEDOUIN    CAMP. 


Sheik's  tent  nearest  the  roadway,  and  consequently  the  stranger 
naturally  comes  into  his  hands  and  becomes  his  guest.  They  do 
all  in  their  power  to  make  the  visitor  comfortable,  and  treat  him 
always  to  the  best  the  place  affords.  He  has  the  full  and  free 
run  of  the  village,  can  go  to  the  opera  or  circus  without  paying 
a  cent,  and  can  run  up  as  large  a  bill  as  he  chooses  at  any  of  the 
bars  and  restaurants.  He  pays  nothing  for  carriages,  morning 
papers,  cocktails  and  cigars,  and  the  street  cars  ;  hospitals  and 
rat  pits  are  always  open  to  him.  For  a  real  free-and-easy  to  a 
stranger,  nothing  can  beat  a  Bedouin  encampment. 


A   BEDOUIN    ENCAMPMENT. 


A  gentleman  who  has  seen  much  of  the  Bedouins  between 
Damascus  and  Palmyra  speaks  of  them  as  follows : 

"  The  Amazeh  are  probably  the  most  powerful  of  all  the  Arab 
tribes.  They  scour  the  Desert,  from  the  Euphrates  to  the  borders 
of  Syria,  and  from  Aleppo  to  the  plain  of  Nejd — in  winter 
emigrating  to  the  Euphrates,  and  sometimes  spreading  over  Meso- 
potamia ;  in  spring  they  come  up  like  "locusts  for  multitude" 
along  the  frontier  of  Syria.  They  can  bring  into  the  field  ten 
thousand  horsemen  and  nearly  ninety  thousand  camel  riders,  and 


PICTURESQUE    COSTUMES. 


309 


they  are  lords  of  a  district  forty  thousand  square  miles  in  area. 
They  are  divided  into  four  great  tribes,  which  are  not  unfrequently 
at  war,  though  they  call  themselves  brothers. 

"  Their  dress  consists  of  an  under  garment  of  calico,  gray  or 
blue,  reaching  to  the  midleg,  and  fastened  round  the  waist  with  a 
leathern  girdle.  The  sleeves  are  wide  and  have  very  long,  pend- 
ant points.     Over  this  is  thrown  the  abba  or  loose  cloak  of  goat's 


A   BEDOUIN    OF   THE   DESERT. 


hair,  having,  usually,  broad,  vertical  stripes  of  white  and  brown. 
On  the  head  is  the  cafia  or  silk  kerchief,  held  in  place  by  a  cord 
of  camel's  hair.  The  sheiks  are  distinguished  by  a  short  scarlet 
pelisse  lined  with  fur  or  sheepskin,  and  they  wear  large  boots  of 
red  leather  while  the  common  people  generally  walk  barefoot. 
"  The  women  are  almost  all  handsome  when  young,  and  in  form 


310  THE    DESERT    WARRIORS. 

and  feature  many  of  them  are  models.  But  they  have  bad  tem- 
pers, are  oppressed  with  hard  work  from  their  youth,  and  soon 
lose  all  their  freshness  and  beauty.  Their  dress  is  very  simple, 
consisting  of  a  wide  loose  robe  of  blue  calico,  fastened  round  the 
neck  and  sweeping  the  ground.  On  the  head  is  a  large  black 
veil  usually  of  silk  but  seldom  used  to  cover  the  face.  They  are 
fond  of  ornaments  ;  rings,  ear-rings,  bracelets  and  anklets  of 
glass,  copper,  silver  and  gold  are  worn  in  great  abundance.  Five 
or  six  bracelets  are  often  found  on  a  single  dark  arm  while  rings 
of  all  shapes  and  sizes  cover  the  fingers. 

"  The  principal  weapon  of  the  Bedouin  is  a  lance,  about  twelve 
feet  long  and  steel  pointed,  and  the  opposite  end  contains  an  iron 
spike  for  fixing  it  in  the  ground.  In  a  charge  the  lance  is  held 
above  the  head  and  just  before  striking  it  is  shaken  so  as  to  make 
it  quiver  from  end  to  end.  All  the  horsemen  carry  swords  and 
some  of  them  carry  pistols  and  daggers.  The  Bedouins  have  a 
novel  mode  of  warfare  with  dromedaries  each  carrying  two  men. 
The  foremost  of  these  men  has  a  short  spear  and  a  club  or  mace 
at  his  saddle  bow  and  the  other  carries  a  matchlock. 

"  They  seldom  fight  pitched  battles.  Guerrilla  warfare  is 
their  forte.  To  fall  upon  the  enemy  suddenly,  sweep  off  a 
large  amount  of  booty  and  get  back  to  their  own  territory  again, 
ere  rescue  or  reprisal  can  be  effected,  is  the  Arab  style.  Plun- 
dering parties  often  go  a  distance  of  eight  or  ten  days'  journey. 
Every  warrior  rides  his  mare  but  has  a  companion  mounted  on  a 
dromedary  to  carry  provisions  and  water.  The  latter  remain  at 
a  rendezvous  while  the  horsemen  make  the  attack.  In  their 
forays  the  Bedouins  never  kill  an  unresisting  foe  unless  tempted 
by  blood-revenge." 

The  real  Bedouin  is  not  a  large  personage.  He  is  rarely  taller 
than  five  feet  and  seven  or  eight  inches,  and  is  not  inclined  to 
corpulence.  He  appears  taller  than  he  really  is  by  reason  of  his 
erectness,  and  he  has  a  light,  elastic  step  and  performs  every 
movement  with  ease  and  grace.  His  features  are  sharp,  his  nose 
aquiline,  his  eyes  dark,  deep  set  and  generally  lustrous,  his  beard 
thin  and  short  and  his  hair  long  and  worn  in  greasy  plaits  down 
each  side  of  the  face.  The  complexion  is  a  dark  olive,  but  it 
varies  considerably  among  different  tribes. 


A    MOST    WONDERFUL    BEAST. 


311 


The  Bedouins  of  Jerusalem  and  most  other  parts  of  Palestine 
are  a  burlesque  upon  the  sons  of  the  Desert.  The  "  Doubter" 
called  them  sons  of  thieves,  or  something  of  the  sort,  and  for 
once  we  agreed  with  him.  The  first  one  that  was  pointed  out  to 
me  was  enough  to  make  a  chicken  laugh  or  a  mule  sing.  He 
was  mounted  on  a  horse  that  looked  as  if  he  had  walked  out  of  a 
bone-boiling  factory  by  mistake  and  was  waiting  to  go  back  again 

and  take  his  turn.     His  ^___^^^^^  . ^^ 

(the  horse's)  pet  hold     ^  ^ 

appeared  to  be  in  wait-  ^ 
ing,  and  certainly  his 
general  style  indicated 
that  he  could  put  the 
time  in  that  way  better 
than  in  any  other  un- 
less it  were  in  dying. 
As  for  speed  he 
couldn't  pass  any  other 
horse,  short  of  a  dead 
one,  except  by  going 
the  other  way,  and  I 
have  a  strong  belief 
that  a  dead  horse  would 
have  given  him  a  rea- 
sonably lively  trial. 
He  was  all  over  knobs 
like  an  Irish  blackthorn 
and  the  "Doubter" 
took  him  at  first  for 
a  lot  of  oyster  shells 
nailed  against  a  gar- 
den gate.  He  drank 
through  his  left  eye  or  rather  the  socket  for  it,  and  then  his 
upper  lip  curled  over  in  a  sort  of  a  hook  that  was  very  conven- 
ient in  picking  up  anything  ;  one  ear  hung  forward  and  the  other 
aft  ;  his  tail  had  been  originally  "  set  up"  but  it  had  broken  and 
lopped  half  way  so  that  it  doubled  back  on  itself  in  a  manner 
remarkable  to  behold. 


^^ 


THE   TERROR   OF  THE   DESERT   ON    HIS   ARAIUAN 
CHARGER. 


312  A    CHEAP-JOHN    BEDOUIN. 

The  rider  was  as  great  a  burlesque  as  the  horse.  He  looked 
like  a  last  year's  scarecrow,  coming  home  from  a  drunk,  and  in 
gazing  upon  his  looped  and  windowed  raggedness  you  experienced 
a  desire  to  move  him  to  the  nearest  cornfield,  run  a  bean  pole 
through  him,  and  set  him  up  on  a  stump.  As  a  work  of  art,  he 
was  worthy  a  place  among  the  pictures  and  statuary  in  the  cap- 
itol  at  Washington,  and  it  was  fortunate  that  none  of  our  aesthetic 
Congressmen  could  have  a  chance  at  him.  He  carried  a  spear 
and  tried  to  wave  it  at  an  imaginary  foe,  but  before  he  got  it  in 
the  air  the  point  fell  out  and  disconcerted  him.  We  turned  away 
to  hide  our  tears — and  smiles.  A  regiment  of  oil  derricks  would 
be  about  as  serviceable  as  one  composed  of  these  fellows,  so  far 
as  fighting  qualities  are  concerned.  If  I  am  ever  robbed  I  hope 
it  will  not  be  by  one  of  these  cheap-John  Bedouins.  I  should 
feel  as  badly  as  a  man  I  once  knew  who  was  telling  me  of  an  ac- 
cident from  which  he  was  limpingly  recovering. 

"  To  think,"  said  he,  "  that  I  should  have  been  ten  years  at  sea, 
and  four  years  in  the  army  in  the  field,  with  never  a  scratch,  and 
then  be  run  over  by  a  swill-wagon  and  have  my  leg  broken." 

In  the  forty  miles  and  more  from  Kuryetein  to  Palmyra  there 
is  not  a  drop  of  water,  and  the  journey  is  generally  made  in  one 
day  with  a  single  brief  halt.  The  valley  is  the  same  and  varies 
from  four  to  eight  miles  in  width,  and  the  features  of  the  land- 
scape are  the  same  as  before. 

By  and  by  the  mountains  shut  in  upon  the  valley  and  leave 
only  a  narrow  and  crooked  pass.  We  enter  this  and  suddenly 
the  whole  mass  of  ruins  upon  the  site  of  Palmyra  are  spread  be- 
fore our  wondering  eyes. 

The  scene  is  wild,  strange,  grand,  and  gloomy.  Ruins  heaped 
on  ruins,  rows  and  rows  of  columns  with  great  irregular  gaps 
where  Time  and  man  have  performed  the  work  of  destruction  ; 
huge  pillars  rising  singly  and  in  groups,  scattered  masses  of  enor- 
mous stones,  broken  arches  and  gateways  and  porticos,  walls  of 
immense  strength  encircling  what  was  once  the  city,  and  in  the 
back  ground  the  great  Temple  of  the  Sun,  these  form  the  pic- 
ture. Baalbek  is  humble  in  our  minds  as  we  look  at  Palmyra. 
No  other  ruin  in  Syria  can  compare  with  this.  As  we  rode 
along  the  dreary  stretch  from   Kuryetein  to  Palmyra  we  tried 


THE    TEMPLE    OF    THE    SUN.  313 

to  imagine  the  spectacle  that  was  to  be  revealed  to  us,  but 
our  imagination  fell  far  short  of  the  realit}'.  We  forget  our  fa- 
tigue and  as  our  camel  kneels  we  dismount  and  stand  lost  in  ad- 
miration and  amazement. 

The  greatest  of  all  the  ruins  in  Palmyra  is  that  of  the  Temple 
of  the  Sun.  The  edifice  was  originally  a  square  court,  measuring 
seven  hundred  and  forty  feet  on  each  of  the  four  sides,  and  its 
walls  were  seventy  feet  high.  Near  the  centre  of  this  court  was 
the  temple,  composed  of  Corinthian  columns,  which  supported 
an  entablature  elaborately  sculptured  and  revealing  a  high  state 
of  art.  The  work  here  is  quite  equal  to  that  at  Baalbek,  and  the 
resemblance  in  many  points  is  remarkable.  The  temple  is  much 
defaced,  as  it  has  been  used  both  as  a  fortress  and  a  mosque,  and 
in  the  latter  instance  the  pious  Moslems  sought  to  remove  as 
much  as  possible  the  indications  of  a  pagan  origin.  Time  has 
been  more  kind  than  man  ;  the  clear  air  of  the  Desert  has  pre- 
served the  sculptures  wherever  man  left  them  untouched,  and 
many  of  them  are  now  as  clear  and  sharp  as  when  the  architect 
pronounced  his  work  complete,  and  stood  in  triumph  at  the  en- 
trance of  the  once  magnificent  portico.  Remember  that  the  col- 
umns of  the  temple  were  almost  seventy  feet  high,  and  that 
inside  the  court  nearly  a  hundred  columns  still  remain  standing ! 

About  three  hundred  yards  from  the  temple  is  the  entrance  to 
the  grand  colonnade,  which  originally  consisted  of  four  rows  of 
columns,  extending  from  one  end  of  the  city  to  the  other,  a  dis- 
tance of  nearly  an  English  mile.  The  columns  were  each  nearly 
sixty  feet  high,  including  base  and  capital,  and  of  the  fifteen  hun- 
dred that  originally  composed  it,  nine-tenths  have  fallen.  It  is 
thought  that  Palmyra  has  at  some  time  suffered  from  an  earth- 
quake, as  in  some  places  whole  ranges  of  columns  are  thrown 
down  in  such  a  way  as  to  indicate  that  their  fall  was  simul- 
taneous. No  one  knows  when  this  work  was  erected,  but  from 
certain  marks  on  the  stones,  it  is  attributed  to  the  time  of  the 
Emperor  Hadrian. 

The  temple  and  the  colonnade  are  the  great  wonders  of 
Palmyra,  and  I  will  not  detract  from  them  by  attempting  a 
description  of  the  other  ruins  inclosed  within  the  walls  or 
scattered  amonir  the  hills  that  surround  the  site  of  this  won- 


314         THE  LAND  OF  THE  "ARABIAN  NIGHTS." 

derful  city.  Let  us  fix  our  attention  on  the  two  objects  I  have 
named. 

Palmyra,  or  Tadmor,  owes  its  origin  to  Solomon,  King  of  Is- 
rael. In  his  time  the  route  of  travel  and  commerce  to  and  from 
the  East  lay  in  this  direction,  and  he  determined  to  found  a  city 
which  should  protect  it.  He,  therefore,  as  recorded  in  I  Kings 
ix.  18,  built  Tadmor  in  the  wilderness. 

For  nearly  a  thousand  years  subsequent  to  the  time  of  King 
Solomon,  the  name  of  Tadmor  does  not  appear,  but  it  became 
noticeable  about  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  Era.  After  its 
submission  to  the  Emperor  Hadrian,  its  greatness  increased  rap- 
idly ;  then  it  underwent  a  series  of  varying  fortunes,  until  about 
the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century,  when  the  time  of  its  grandeur 
came  to  an  end,  and  its  decline  and  fall  were  rapid.  In  the 
twelfth  century  it  had  a  population  of  more  than  four  thou- 
sand ;  now  the  only  inhabitants  of  Palmyra  are  a  few  dozens  of 
dirty  and  sullen  Arabs,  who  live  in  hovels  erected  in  the  court 
yard  of  the  Temple  of  the  Sun. 

We  spend  a  day  at  Palmyra,  wandering  among  its  ruins  and 
musing  upon  Solomon,  and  Hadrian,  and  Zenobia,  whose  very 
names  are  unknown  to  the  people  now  dwelling  there.  Early 
the  next  morning  we  resume  our  seats  in  the  saddle  and  return 
to  Damascus. 

F"rom  Palmyra  one  can  travel  to  Bagdad  by  way  of  Mossool, 
and  I  met  several  gentlemen  who  had  made  the  journey.  It  is 
a  fatiguing  one  and  must  be  made  partly  in  the  saddle  and  partly 
on  a  raft,  unless  the  traveller  is  fortunate  enough  to  find  a  boat  at 
Mossool.  The  shores  of  the  river  are  somewhat  monotonous,  and 
the  principal  incidents  of  the  route  are  the  danger  of  an  upset. 

Bagdad  is  well  known  to  us  from  the  recurrence  of  its  name  so 
frequently  in  the  Arabian  Nights.  A  British  official  who  visited 
it  a  few  years  ago,  says  that  it  covers  an  enormous  space  for 
an  Oriental  city.  Its  population  is  estimated  at  about  eighty 
thousand.  The  chief  part  of  it  consists  of  Arabs  and  Turks, 
but  there  is  a  large  colony  of  Persians  and  other  Orientals,  as 
well  as  a  fair  number  of  Christians,  and  a  few  Jews. 

The  town  proper  is  on  one  side  of  the  Tigris,  which  is  spanned 
by  a  bridge  of  boats,  but  the  fine  houses  are  scattered  on  both 


A    STRANGE    DISEASE.  31/ 

banks.  For  a  third  of  the  year  the  climate  of  Bagdad  is  delight- 
ful, another  third  it  is  a  trifle  too  warm  for  comfort,  but  can  be 
endured,  and  for  the  remaining  third  it  is  so  hot  that  it  could 
give  points  to  the  inside  of  a  smelting  furnace  and  then  beat  it. 
At  this  time  the  inhabitants  take  shelter  in  their  cellars,  and 
anybody  who  has  a  refrigerator  to  sleep  in  is  considered  for- 
tunate. They  bake  their  bread  by  putting  the  dough  on  a  plat- 
ter and  setting  it  in  the  sun,  and  when  they  want  to  roast  a  tur- 
key or  a  joint  of  mutton,  they  put  it  on  the  housetop  for  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  about  noon.  I  haven't  the  documents  for  all  the 
above  statements,  but  know  a  man  who  will  prepare  them  if  paid 
in  advance. 

There  is  a  curious  disease  in  this  part  of  the  world,  and  its 
ravages  extend  through  the  valleys  of  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris, 
and  as  far  west  as  Aleppo.  In  Bagdad  it  is  called  the  date- 
mark,  and  further  west  is  known  as  the  Aleppo  button. 

It  is  a  sore,  obstinate  and  annoying,  but  painless,  and  appears 
on  any  part  of  the  body  just  as  a  boil  does  in  Christian  countries, 
It  stays  twelve  months,  and  then  heals  of  its  own  accord,  leaving 
a  scar  which  stays  for  life.  At  first  this  scar  is  the  color  of  a 
date,  but  it  fades  out  in  a  few  years,  and  resembles  the  rest  of 
the  skin. 

Everybody  must  have  it  once,  and  only  once  ;  the  disease  is 
impartial,  as  it  shows  no  distinction  between  natives  and  foreign- 
ers who  have  not  taken  out  their  papers  of  naturalization.  The 
gentleman  who  is  my  authority  says  he  knew  an  officer  in  the 
British  army,  in  whom  the  date-mark  made  its  appearance  while 
he  was  travelling  from  Bagdad  to  India.  It  remained  untouched, 
and  then  an  English  doctor  attempted  to  cure  it. 

He  cauterized  it  ever}'^  day  for  four  weeks,  and  at  the  end  of 
that  time  the  sore  dried  up  and  healed.  Everything  went  on 
well  for  a  month,  and  then  the  sore  reappeared — not  in  the  old 
spot,  but  in  four  other  places,  where  it  remained  five  months  and 
then  vanished. 


20 


li^^fe^-^r^^ 


CHAPTER     XXIV. 

ADVENTURES  IN  THE  MOUNTAINS  OF  SYRIA. 

"Doing"  Syria — The  "Short"  and  the  "Long"  Route — How  to  Choose  Them — 
Engaging  a  Dragoman — Farewell  to  Damascus — Preying  on  Trave  lers — The 
Wonderful  Rivers  of  Syria — Cross'ng  the  Desert — A  Picture  of  Desolation — 
Scene  of  St.  Paul's  Conversion — .V  Striking  Contrast — Ancient  Ruins  and  Modern 
Hovels — A  Night  with  the  Bedouins — A  Hard  Road  to  Travel — A  Glorious  View 
— The  "Doubter's"  Mischance — The  Lizard  in  the  Boot — A  Ludicrous  Scene — 
Gustave's  New  Joke — Mollifying  a  Native — The  Massacre  at  Hasbeiya — Treachery 
of  a  Turkish  Colonel — Scene  of  Christ's  Labors — In  the  Holy  Land. 


THE  "  short  route  "  of  Syria  and  Palestine  is  to  land  at  Bey- 
rout  , proceed  to  Damascus,  by  way  cf  ]\Iount  Lebanon,  and 
then  return  to  Beyrout.  There  one  takes  ship  to  Jaffa,  whence 
he  visits  Jerusalem  and  the  country  around  it,  and  returns  to 
Jaffa  to  sail  away  to  Egypt  or  some  other  country. 

The  "  long  route  "  is  to  land  at  Beyrout  and  proceed  to  Damas- 
cus, as  before.  From  Damascus  one  goes  overland  by  Tiberias 
to  Jerusalem,  and,  after  seeing  the  Holy  City  and  surrounding 
country,  takes  ship  at  Jaffa.  This  route  may  be  reversed  by 
landing  at  Jaffa  and  taking  ship  at  Beyrout. 

From  Damascus  to  Jerusalem,  by  the  "  long  route,"  is  a  horse- 
back journey  of  seventeen  days.  It  may  be  shortened  by  rapid 
travel,  and  extended  to  any  limit ;  if  you  hire  the  dragoman  and 
his  outfit  by  the  day,  the  longer  you  make  the  time  the  better  he 
will  be  pleased. 

The  spring  is  the  best  time  of  the  year  for  making  this  excur- 
sion, as  it  comes  between  the  period  of  "  the  early  and  the  latter 
There  are  no  carriage  roads  in  this  part  of  the  country, 

(318) 


rain. 


WORLDLY-MINDED    SYRIANS.  319 

and  the  traveller  must  make  up  his  mind  to  the  discomforts  of  a 
saddle  and  to  lodging  in  a  tent.  A  dragoman  will  undertake  to 
supply  him  with  everything — horses,  tents,  food,  bedding,  and 
all — for  a  stipulated  price,  which  varies  with  the  size  of  the  party, 
the  time  of  year,  and  various  other  circumstances.  I  shall  have 
more  to  say  on  this  subject  in  another  place,  and  will  jump  at 
once  into  the  saddle  without  wasting  time  upon  preliminaries. 
The  long  route  was  impracticable  for  our  party  at  the  time  we 
were  in  Syria,  but  I  gave  it  a  very  careful  study,  and  from  the 
sources  at  my  command  obtained  the  fullest  information  concern- 
ing it.  Let  us  undertake  a  journey  by  this  ancient  way,  and  we 
will  carry  the  "  Doubter  "  along  with  us.     He  can't  be  spared. 

We  leave  Damascus  by  the  Salahiyeh  suburb,  passing  along  a 
paved  road  and  making  a  gentle  ascent  that  gives  us  a  good  view 
of  the  city  every  time  we  choose  to  turn  our  heads.  Some  of  the 
houses  in  this  suburb  are  quite  good,  and  we  are  not  surprised  to 
learn  that  many  of  the  merchants  of  Damascus  make  their  resi- 
dence here.  As  we  reach  the  end  of  the  large  village  we  pass  some 
ruined  mosques  and  tombs,  but  we  have  seen  so  many  of  these 
things  that  our  attention  is  hardly  attracted  by  them.  The  Mos- 
lems of  the  past  must  have  been  more  devout  than  are  their  de- 
scendants of  to-day,  as  they  built  a  great  many  edifices  for  reli- 
gious and  memorial  purposes,  to  which  very  little  attention  is 
paid  at  present  The  Syrian  Moslem  does  not  seem  to  care  for 
the  antique  any  more  than  does  his  Turkish  brother  ;  there  may 
be  exceptions,  but  I  think  the  rule  holds  good.  For  the  ruins 
of  Baalbek  and  Palmyra,  the  Syrian  has  no  veneration  except 
for  their  money-making  qualities ;  the  few  people  that  live  near 
them  are  not  attracted  to  either  spot  by  any  love  for  it,  but  solely 
because  it  is  a  good  place  for  "  backsheesh."  Take  away  the 
tourist  and  his  gold  and  silver  and  the  natives  would  move  else- 
where. 

I  am  the  more  severe  on  these  worldly-minded  Syrians,  who 
remain  unmoved  in  the  face  of  the  stupendous  remains  of  a  past 
age  when  I  contrast  them  with  the  guides  and  runners,  hackmen 
and  peddlers,  hotel-keepers  and  hotel-waiters,  who  assemble  at 
Niagara  and  similar  places  in  America.  At  Palmyra,  or  at  the 
Pyramids,  the  Arabs  pester  you  for  "  backsheesh,"  and  greatly 


320  SKIRTING    THE    DESERT. 

mar  your  interest  and  pleasure.  But  at  Niagara  did  any  one  ever 
hear  of  such  conduct  on  the  part  of  the  men  who  make  their 
living  there  .'*  The  noble  qualities  of  the  American  (generally  a 
naturalized  one),  come  out  strongly  at  Niagara  ;  the  beauty  and 
sublimity  of  the  cataract  never  fail  to  impress  the  resident  with 
the  sense  of  his  duties  to  his  fellow-man,  and  while  the  Arab  will 
endeavor  to  make  you  pay  ten  times  what  you  ought,  his  Niagara 
prototype  is  satisfied  with  five  times,  provided  he  knows  he  cannot 
possibly  lie  you  out  of  any  more.  I  have  been  at  Niagara  and 
Long  Branch,  the  White  Mountains  and  the  Yosemite  Valley, 
and  thus  speak  knowingly.  And  whenever  an  Arab  endeavored 
to  defraud  me  I  thought  how  much  better  things  were  at  the 
fashionable  resorts  in  my  own  country,  and  derived  much  conso- 
lation from  the  reflection. 

We  take  a  last  view  of  Damascus  from  a  point  where  the  road 
crosses  a  hill  about  five  hundred  feet  above  the  city,  and  nearly 
two  miles  away.  We  see  the  valley  of  the  Abana  in  all  its  love- 
liness, and  realize  how  much  is  due  to  this  river  and  its  never- 
failing  waters.  We  can  fully  understand  the  pride  with  which 
the  native  of  Damascus  contemplates  this  perennial  stream  and 
do  not  wonder  at  the  reply  of  Naaman,  when  told  to  wash  in 
Jordan.  The  river  is  made  all  the  more  lovely  by  its  fringe  of 
trees  and  the  wide-spreading  gardens  where  it  flows,  and  the 
greenness  of  the  foliage  is  rendered  all  the  more  apparent  when 
we  contrast  it  with  the  barren  hills  around.  The  river,  divided 
here  and  there  into  several  streams,  foams  and  ripples  through  the 
glen  that  leads  it  down  from  the  mountains  to  the  plain  below. 
Our  road  lies  along  this  glen,  and  we  suddenly  leave  it  and  emerge 
upon  the  plain  of  Dimas. 

The  change  is  quite  abrupt,  from  the  rich  verdure  of  the  valley 
to  the  sterility  of  the  Desert,  for  this  plain  is  really  a  desert  in 
miniature.  The  soil  is  hard  and  dry,  more  like  flint  than  earth, 
and,  if  you  happen  to  traverse  it  in  summer,  you  find  the  heat  is 
intense  It  happened  to  be  raining  when  I  crossed  this  plain,  and 
moreover,  it  was  in  the  winter,  so  that  I  escaped  the  sensation  of 
undergoing  a  torture  by  roasting.  It  is  difficult  to  realize  that 
such  a  barren  waste  can  exist  so  near  such  a  charming  city  as 
Damascus.     The  plain  is  about  ten  miles  across,  and  from  one 


THE    "doubter"    as    A    MULE.  321 

side  to  the  other  there  is  not  a  green  thing  to  be  seen,  unless  the 
traveller  may  consider  himself  one. 

After  crossing  the  plain  of  Dimas  we  enter  the  mountains, 
where  we  find  a  few  pleasant  valleys  and  ravines,  and  have  some 
rugged  scenery  that  is  not  disagreeable.  From  one  of  the  passes 
the  guide  points  out  another  road,  which  leads  more  to  the  east- 
ward, and  where  the  scene  of  Saul's  conversion  is  located.  There 
seems  to  be  some  difference  of  opinion  about  the  exact  locality, 
and  I  suspect  that  nobody  knows  the  real  state  of  things. 

The  tradition  which  locates  the  conversion  there  dates  back  to 
the  time  of  the  Crusades.  Some  authorities  make  the  scene  of 
the  conversion  almost  under  the  walls  of  Damascus,  and  others 
within  a  mile  or  two  of  that  place.  It  all  depends  upon  what  is 
meant  by  "  near  Damascus."  If  we  were  at  San  Francisco,  and 
speaking  of  Albany,  we  might  say  "  it  is  near  New  York,"  but 
should  hardly  use  the  expression  if  we  were  at  Trenton  or  Hart- 
ford. However,  it  makes  no  difference  about  the  conversion  ;  we 
know  it  happened  on  the  road  from  Jerusalem,  and  was  near 
Damascus,  so  that  a  mile  or  two  is  of  no  consequence. 

We  pass  several  villages  and  wind  among  the  hills,  and  in  some 
of  the  villages,  or  near  them,  we  find  the  remains  of  temples 
jvhich  were  doubtless  magnificent  in  their  time.  They  are  sup- 
posed to  have  been  dedicated  to  the  worship  of  the  sun,  though 
their  history  and  origin  are  unknown.  We  are  in  front  of  the 
mountain  of  Hermon,  known  here  as  Jebelesh-Sheik,  and  it  is 
observable  that  in  several  places  the  temples  are  made  to  face  it, 
leading  to  the  supposition  that  the  mountain  was  an  object  of 
veneration  and  worship. 

We  pass  the  night  in  our  camp,  at  the  little  village  of  Rasheiya  ; 
we  are  not  in  the  village,  but  near  enough  to  enable  the  beggars 
and  the  lame,  halt,  and  blind  to  find  us  without  trouble  and  ask 
for  "  backsheesh,"  which  they  are  sure  to  do.  The  white  top  of 
Mount  Hermon  rises  above  us,  and  we  look  upon  it  with  longing 
eyes.     Who  will  join  me  in  climbing  it .? 

We  will  divide  the  party  for  a  day.  We  will  put  the  "  Doubter  " 
with  the  rest  of  the  mules  and  send  them  around  to  Hasbeiya, 
where  they  can  wait  till  we  get  down  on  the  other  side  of  Her- 
mon.    We  will  start  before  daybreak,  climb  the  mountain,  and, 


3-2 


CLIMBING    MT.    HERMON. 


by  making  sharp  work  of  it,  can  get  down  to  camp  in  season  for 
a  late  supper.  We  shall  feel  as  tired  as  though  we  had  been  run 
through  a  rolling  mill  ;  climbing  Mount  Hermon  is  serious  busi- 
ness, and  a  thing  to  do  once.  Nobody  would  undertake  it  a  sec- 
ond time,  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  the  trip. 

Hermon  is,  with  one  exception,  the  highest  mountain  in  Syria, 
Lebanon  being  the  most  elevated.  Its  summit,  or  rather  its  high- 
est summit,  for  it  has  three  peaks,  is  about  ten  thousand  feet 
above  the  sea  level,  and  for  the  greater  part  of  the  year  is  covered 
with  snow.  In  fact  the  snow  remains  there  the  entire  year,  as 
there  are  certain  ravines  and  valleys  where  it  never  disappears 
completely,  but  lies  in  sloping  streaks  visible  at  a  great  distance. 
The  mountain  is  of  gray  limestone,  like  Lebanon,  and  as  one 
looks  up  its  sides  there  is  an  aspect  of  almost  complete  barren- 
ness. The  central  peak  is  entirely  destitute  of  vegetation,  with 
the  exception  of  a  few  thorny  bushes  that  seem  to  cling  there 
in  utter  hopelessness. 

The  view  from  the  summit  is  magnificent,  and  well  repays  us 
for  our  trouble.  On  the  north  we  have  the  ranges  of  Lebanon 
and  Anti-Lebanon,  with  the  valley  of  Bukaa  between  them.  To 
the  east  is  the  plain  of  Arabia,  spreading  out  like  an  ocean,  and 
dotted  here  and  there  with  ranges  and  clusters  of  hills  that  look 
not  unlike  islands.  Southward  is  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  and  beyond 
it  we  can  trace  the  deep  valley  of  the  Jordan  till  it  is  lost  in  the 
distance  and  shut  in  by  the  mountains  of  Gilead  and  Samaria. 
We  can  see  the  sunlight  playing  on  the  waters  of  the  blue  Medi- 
terranean in  the  west,  and  trace  the  coast  line,  with  all  its  sinu- 
osities, from  Mount  Carmel  to  Tyre  and  Sidon.  At  our  feet  and 
all  below  us  the  mountains  and  valleys,  rivers  and  ravines,  are 
traceable,  and  as  we  turn  around  the  points  of  compass  from 
north  back  to  north  again,  a  beautiful  panorama  is  revealed  to  us. 

On  one  of  the  summits  of  Hermon  there  are  the  ruins  of  a 
small  temple ;  they  are  on  the  very  top  and  near  the  edge  of  a 
cliff,  and  the  character  of  the  work  indicates  great  antiquity. 

Their  history  is  unknown.  But  careful  students  of  the  Bible 
have  connected  them  with  certain  passages  which  seem  to  show 
that  the  temples  were  used  for  purposes  of  idolatry. 

We  descend  and  rejoin  our  companions  at  Hasbeiya,  where  we 


THE    LIZARD    IN    THE    "DOUBTERS       BOOT. 


325 


find  the  "  Doubter"  in  trouble  with  a  native.  He  took  off  his 
boots  to  cool  his  feet  after  getting  into  camp,  and  while  the  boots 
were  lying  on  the  ground  a  lizard  crept  into  one  of  them  and 
nestled  down  into  the  toe.  When  he  attempted  to  don  them 
again  the  lizard  was  in  the  way,  and  the  old  fellow  danced  around 
as  if  he  had  been  educated  for  an  organ  grinder's  monkey.  The 
nimbleness  and  desperate  energy  of  his  movements,  as  he  vainly 
endeavored,  in  his  excited  state,  to  pull  off  his  boot,  was  a  per- 
formance that  the  astonished  natives  had  never  before  witnessed. 
He  tugged  and  twisted,  and  hopped  about  on  one  leg,  in  a  very 
expert  and  fantastic  style. 

Finally  he  removed  the  boot  and  out  came  the  lizard,  one  of 
those  harmless,  pretty  little  things  that  arc  found  all  through 
Syria.     One  of  the   natives  had   /'"^  \ 

witnessed  his  contortions,  and  on 
seeing  the  very  slight  cause  for 
it  the  impudent  aboriginal  laughed. 
This  was  very  wrong  for  him  to 
do,  and  also  very  rare,  for  the  Syr- 
ians are  a  solemn  race  and  about 
as  little  inclined  to  risibility  as  an 
Indian. 

The  "  Doubter "  accused  the 
native  of  putting  the  lizard  into 
the  boot  and  called  the  dragoman 
to  translate  the  accusation.  Na- 
tive denied  the  charge  and  wanted 
"  backsheesh"  as  a  salve  to  his 
wounded  honor.  The  "  Doubter"  wouldn't  give  it,  and  thus  is 
the  situation  when  we  arrive  from  Mount  Hermon. 

"  Go  away,  boy,  go  away,"  he  repeats  in  the  intervals  of  the 
demand  for  "  backsheesh."  The  boy  does  not  heed  the  remark 
and  grows  more  importunate  as  he  sees  we  do  not  take  sides  with 
the  "  Doubter." 

"  Isn't  this  Hasbeiya }"  Gustave  says,  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye. 

I  nod  and  speak  assent. 

"  You  must  give  him  something  at  once,"  says  Gustave, 
turning  to  the  skeptic.     "  This  place  is  the  most  dangerous  in 


AN   INHABITED    BOOT. 


326  BLEEDING    THE    "  DOUBTER." 

all  Syria.  The  majority  of  the  inhabitants  are  Chretiens,  and 
will  murder  you  on  the  slightest  provocation.  If  that  boy  goes 
away  unpaid,  after  you  have  doubted  his  honor,  he  will  bring 
down  a  dozen  or  more  armed  men  and  your  life  won't  be  worth 
three  centimes." 

The  "  Doubter"  is  incredulous,  but  there  is  enough  in  Gus- 
tave's  statement  to  alarm  him,  and  we  see  that  he  changes  color. 
After  a  moment's  hesitation  he  suggests  that  Gustave  had  better 
pay  the  boy  and  send  him  away  if  the  place  is  so  very  dangerous. 

"  That  will  never  do,"  responds  Gustave,  " yoti  have  committed 
the  offense  and  it  is  you  they  will  be  after.  Do  you  see  those 
men  in  front  of  that  house  }  They  know  something  is  wrong. 
Give  the  boy  half  a  franc  and  send  him  away." 

The  "  Doubter"  reluctantly  draws  half  a  franc  from  his  pocket 
and  places  it  in  the  boy's  hand.  He  is  suspicious  that  he  has 
been  hoaxed,  but  he  has  some  regard  for  his  continued  stay  on 
this  planet  and  is  willing  to  pay  a  small  sum.  But  rather  than 
give  a  franc  he  would  take  the  chances.  '  One  must  draw  a  line 
somewhere,  you  know. 

Before  i860  Hasbeiya  contained  a  population  of  about  five 
thousand,  four-fifths  of  them  Christians.  It  was  the  scene  of  one 
of  the  most  terrible  massacres  of  that  year.  The  town  stands  in 
a  glen,  and  is  surrounded  on  three  sides  by  high  hills  which  are 
terraced  and  covered  with  vineyards,  and  fig  and  olive  trees.  In 
a  secure  place  on  a  rocky  ridge  is  a  strong  building  formerly  the 
palace  of  a  local  chieftain,  and  capable  of  resisting  any  attack 
with  small  arms.  In  i860  it  had  a  garrison  of  two  hundred  sold- 
iers commanded  by  a  Turkish  colonel,  and  when  the  Christians 
were  attacked  by  the  Druzes  they  appealed  to  the  Colonel  for 
protection.  He  gave  them  a  written  guarantee  of  safety  on  con- 
dition that  they  should  come  into  the  palace  and  surrender  their 
weapons,  which  they  did.  They  were  then  kept  for  seven  days 
in  the  palace  and  at  the  end  of  that  time  the  colonel  ordered  the 
gates  thrown  open.  The  Druzes  were  admitted,  and  the  Chris- 
tians to  the  number  of  a  thousand  were  massacred.  The  sold- 
iers of  the  garrison  did  not  join  in  the  massacre,  but  they  pre- 
vented the  Christians  fleeing  or  seeking  concealment,  and  in 
some  instances  pushed  them  forward  to  be  killed.     The  Colonel 


END    OF    THE    DRUZE    MASSACRE.  32/ 

was  afterward  tried,  condemned  and  shot,  at  Damascus,  by  order 
of  the  British  Commissioner,  Lord  Dufferin.     He  (the  Colonel) 
insisted  that  he  was  acting  under  authority  of  his  superiors,  and 
the  belief  is  very  pre^'alent  that  the  whole  series  of  massacres ' 
was  covertly  ordered  from  Constantinople. 

From  Hasbeiya  we  take  an  early  start  and  ride  to  Banias 
through  a  rough  and  picturesque  country,  fairly  wooded  for  Syria 
and  containing  frequent  olive  groves.  We  pass  a  lot  of  villages, 
each  looking  so  much  like  the  other  that  it  is  not  worth  while  to 
try  to  make  much  distinction  between  them.  We  pass  near 
one  of  the  sources  of  the  Jordan,  a  fountain  that  has  flowed  with- 
out cessation  for  unknown  thousands  of  years,  and  will  probably 
flow  on  for  thousands  of  years  to  come.  One  of  the  villages  on 
the  route  contains  the  tomb  or  one  of  the  tombs,  of  NimroJ,  the 
mighty  hunter.  Very  little  is  left  of  it — about  as  much  as  there 
is  of  Nimrod  himself. 

Banias,  better  known  as  Cesarea-Philippi,  is  picturesquely  sit- 
uated. A  mountain  crowned  by  a  ruined  castle  overlooks  a  broad 
terrace  which  commands  a  fine  view  of  mountain  and  plain.  The 
ruins  of  the  city  and  the  huts  of  the  modern  town  are  situated  on 
this  terrace,  and  the  spot  reflects  creditably  on  the  man  who  chose 
it.  I  don't  think  he  is  around  now,  as  he  performed  his  work  a 
good  while  before  King  Solomon  was  thought  of.  The  time  of 
the  foundation  is  unknown,  but  it  is  certain  that  a  city  stood  here 
at  a  very  early  date.  The  name  Banias  comes  from  Panias  or 
Panium  ;  the  Greek  settlers  in  Syria  established  here  a  temple 
to  the  worship  of  the  God  Pan  and  from  the  establishment  of  the 
temple  a  city  grew  up. 

The  ruins  are  of  considerable  extent,  and  comprise  among 
other  things  a  citadel,  inclosing  a  quadrangle  of  four  acres  or 
more  within  massive  walls.  The  modern  village  is  within  this 
citadel,  and  contains  forty  or  fifty  huts  and  houses  built  with  flat 
roofs,  like  nearly  all  houses  in  Syria.  How  are  the  mighty  fal- 
len !  The  walls  of  the  city  have  suffered  from  earthquakes  and 
vandalism,  but  more  especially  from  the  roots  of  plants  and  trees 
that  have  forced  the  stones  apart.  The  same  is  the  case  with 
the  castle  that  overlooks  the  town  at  an  elevation  of  quite  a 
thousand  feet. 


228  AT  THE  FOUNTAIN  OF  THE  JORDAN.  ^ 

A  Steep  path  leads  up  to  the  castle  and  it  requires  an  hour  of 
toilsome  climbing  to  reach  the  top  of  the  hill.  The  castle  has  a 
curious  shape  ;  it  is  about  a  thousand  feet  long  by  two  hundred 
broad,  and  narrows  considerably  in  the  centre,  so  that  it  looks 
like  two  castles  side  by  side.  Many  of  the  stones  composing  the 
walls  are  of  great  size,  for  such  an  elevation  ;  they  are  frequently 
ten  or  twelve  feet  long,  and  accurately  hewn  and  dressed.  One 
can  spend  hours  in  the  castle  studying  its  construction  and  look- 
ing out  upon  the  beautiful  panorama  that  greets  the  eye  from  its 
walls.  Antiquarians  and  archaeologists  are  at  variance  concern- 
ing this  castle  ;  some  of  them  give  it  an  existence  from  a  period 
long  before  the  Christian  Era,  while  others  think  it  is  not  more 
than  twelve  or  fifteen  hundred  years  old. 

The  city  did  not  become  prominent  in  history  until  the  time 
of  Herod  the  Great.  Josephus  relates  that  "  Herod  having  ac- 
companied Caesar  to  the  sea  and  returned  home  erected  to  him  a 
beautiful  temple  of  white  marble  near  the  palace  called  Panmm. 
This  is  a  fine  cave  in  a  mountain  under  which  there  is  a  great 
cavity  in  the  earth,  abrupt,  deep  and  full  of  water.  Over  it  hangs 
a  vast  mountain ;  and  under  the  cavern  rise  the  springs  of  the 
river  Jordan.  Herod  adorned  this  place,  which  was  already  a 
remarkable  one,  still  farther  by  the  erection  of  this  temple  which 
he  dedicated  to  Caesar." 

The  description  is  accurate.  The  temple  is  gone,  but  there 
are  Greek  inscriptions  and  sculptured  niches  on  the  face  of  the 
cliff  which  were  made  at  the  time  the  temple  was  erected.  The 
great  fountain  which  forms  the  principal  source  of  the  Jordan 
bursts  from  the  side  of  the  cliff  through  a  cavern,  now  partially 
choked  with  rough  rocks  and  fragments  of  ancient  buildings. 
The  waters  roll  and  break  through  a  rocky  channel  as  they  begin 
their  course  down  the  deep  ravine  which  leaids  them  on  and  on 
till  they  are  swallowed  in  the  dark  and  gloomy  bosom  of  the 
Dead  Sea. 

Hermon,  the  high  mountain,  is  in  front  of  us,  and  its  triple 
summit  stands  cold  and  majestic  now  as  it  stood  in  the  days  that 
were  made  memorable  by  the  recorded  miracles  of  Christ. 


CHAPTER     XXV. 

"  FROM  DAN  TO  BEERSHEBA."— JOURNEYING  THROUGH  THE 

HOLY  LAND. 

Our  first  morning  in  Palestine— Breaking  Camp  at  Banias — "  From  Dan  to  Beer- 
sheba  "—Explanation  of  the  phrase— The  Cup  of  the  Hills- The  Golden  Calf 
of  Jeroboam— Story  of  Vishnu  and  his  Idol— An  Incident  and  its  Moral — The 
Battle  fields  of  Joshua — A  singular  species  of  Plough — The  "  Doubter  "  in  a 
quandary— Joseph's  Pit— The  Sea  of  Galilee— Fishing  with  Poisoned  Bait- 
Capernaum  and  its  Ruins — Scene  of  Christ's  Miracles — The  Birthplace  of  Mary 
Magdalen— A  horde  of  Beggars— A  Pitiful  Spectacle— The  Robber's  Cave- 
Herod  and  his  Strategy— The  Jews  of  Tiberias— A  Seedy  Crowd— Ruins  of  the 
Ancient  City — The  spot  where  Christ  fed  the  Multitude. 

IN  the  morning  we  are  roused  by  the  voice  of  the  dragoman  or 
one  of  his  servants,  and  have  half  an  hour  for  dressing.  We 
rise  reluctantly,  for  we  are  still  weary  from  the  fatigues  of  yester- 
day, and  how  we  do  wish  for  just  a  few  m mutes  more. 

The  "  Doubter"  pulls  at  the  handle  of  the  Judge's  umbrella, 
under  the  impression  that  it  is  a  bell-knob,  and  sleepily  asks  for 
a  cocktail.  But  there  is  nothing  of  the  kind  to  be  had,  and  after 
grumbling  at  everybody  and  everything,  he  proceeds  to  his  toilet 
and  soon  comes  out  with  an  appearance  suggestive  of  an  Italian 
brigand  who  has  had  a  run  of  bad  luck. 

While  we  are  at  breakfast,  the  men  strike  the  tents  and  are 
off.  They  go  straight  to  our  camping  place  for  the  coming  night, 
so  that  they  will  have  everything  ready  by  the  time  we  arrive. 
One  pack-horse  and  a  servant  with  the  lunch  remains  with  us, 
and  they  and  their  burden  come  in  very  handy  about  noon.  We 
have  no  trouble  in  getting  up  good  appetites  in  this  clear  air  of 
Palestine,  though  unfortunately  it  is  a  trifle  too  warm  for  com- 

(329) 


330  A   FEAT    OF    LEGERDEMAIN. 

fort.  A  rugged  path,  where  the  rocks  threaten  to  give  us  some 
dangerous  tumbles,  brings  us  to  Tell-el-Kady,  about  four  miles 
from  Banias.  This  place  is  better  known  as  Dan.  Who  has  not 
heard  of  going  "  from  Dan  to  Beersheba  ?"  The  latter  place — 
Bir-es-seba,  or  "well  of  the  covenant" — is  on  the  southern  border 
of  Palestine,  while  Dan  is  on  the  northern.  Consequently, 
"  from  Dan  to  Beersheba  "  means  "  from  one  end  of  the  country 
to  the  other."  The  identity  of  the  site  cannot  be  doubted,  as  the 
place  is  clearly  described  in  Biblical  and  other  history,  and  the 
remains  of  the  ancient  city  are  here. 

There  is  a  sort  of  cup-shaped  mound  here,  in  a  plain,  less  than 
a  hundred  feet  above  it,  and  possibly  a  thousand  yards  across. 
The  whole  place  is  covered  with  a  tangle  of  brushwood  and 
weeds,  and  if  we  take  the  trouble  to  penetrate  this  thicket,  we 
shall  find  hewn  stones,  broken  columns,  and  other  indications  of 
the  city  that  has  passed  away.  There  are  some  oak  trees  here, 
and  one  of  them  can  boast  of  considerable  size.  It  is  one  of  the 
oaks  of  Bashan,  and  others  can  be  seen  on  the  mountain  near  us, 
and  dotting  in  irregular  patches  various  parts  of  the  landscape. 
The  oaks  of  Bashan  are  less  famous  now  than  they  were  three 
thousand  years  ago. 

History  tells  us  that  this  was  once  a  Phoenician  settlement, 
under  the  name  of  Laish,  and  was  captured  by  some  Danites, 
who  changed  its  name  to  Dan.  They  took  things  easily,  and  had 
a  good  time,  and  whenever  there  was  a  chance  to  make  an  honest 
penny  by  a  little  robbery,  they  were  up  to  the  scratch. 

Dan  is  mentioned  in  the  first  book  of  Kings  (xii.  28-32)  as 
one  of  the  places  where  Jeroboam  erected  a  golden  calf. 

Jeroboam  understood  human  nature,  when  he  selected  gold  as 
the  metal  of  which  the  calf  should  be  made.  Brass  would  have 
been  just  as  bright,  but  it  has  its  defects,  and  the  chief  one  is  a 
lack  of  intrinsic  value. 

Vishnu  once  appeared  in  the  guise  of  a  beggar  to  a  Brahmin 
who  was  superintending  the  erection  and  dedication  of  a  temple 
in  one  of  the  sacred  groves  of  India.  The  temple  was  complete, 
and  the  Brahmin  was  directing  his  fellows  how  to  place  the 
pedestal  for  the  idol  which  he  was  just  taking  out  of  the 
box.      He  removed  the  straw  and  wrappings,  and  brought  to 


A    GOLDEN    IDOL    WITH    DIAMOND    EVES.  33 1 

light  an  idol  of  common  wood,  with  pieces  of  white  porcelain 
for  eyes. 

"  Stop,  O,  Brahmin,"  said  the  beggar.  "  Erect  not  that  wooden 
idol,  for  your  temple  will  then  be  no  more  than  others." 

"  But  make  an  idol  of  pure  gold,  and  give  it  a  pair  of  diamonds 
for  eyes,  and  the  whole  world  will  come  here  to  worship." 

The  beggar  waved  his  hand,  and  behold  !  an  idol  such  as  he 
had  described  stood  upon  the  pedestal.  The  Brahmin  turned  to 
thank  the  stranger,  but  he  had  disappeared. 

And  that  shrine  has  ever  been  the  most  sacred  in  all  the  land 
of  India. 

The  Brahmin  sent  the  wooden  idol  back  to  the  factory,  and 
they  accepted  it  at  twenty  per  cent,  off,  less  the  freight  and 
charges  for  repacking.  And  they  sold  it  to  a  retail  cigar  dealer, 
who  used  it  for  a  sign  in  front  of  his  shop. 

The  most  interesting  thing  at  Dan  is  the  great  fountain  of  the 
Jordan.  It  bursts  out  at  the  western  base  of  the  mound,  and 
forms  a  small  pond,  and  out  of  this  pond  flows  the  stream,  the 
largest  in  all  Syria  from  a  single  source. 

Less  than  an  hour  from  Dan,  over  a  stony  and  marshy  plain, 
brings  us  to  Ain  Belat,  another  fountain,  and  there  is  another  of 
the  same  sort  not  far  away.  There  is  nothing  particularly  inter- 
esting here,  and  so  we  go  on  to  Ain  Mellahah,  where  we  find  the 
tents  waiting  for  us  near  an  old  mill  that  stands  by  the  spring. 

Lake  Huleh,  a  sheet  of  water  about  three  miles  by  four,  is  close 
at  hand,  but  it  has  no  intrinsic  attractions. 

All  around  the  lake  is  a  marshy  ground,  spreading  out  on  the 
North  into  a  plain,  that  has  some  claims  to  fertility.  The  Bed- 
ouins cultivate  it  after  a  fashion,  and  some  speculators  have 
bought  ground  there  and  leased  it  out  to  the  natives. 

Syrian  agriculture  is  of  a  very  primitive  kind.  They  use,  in 
this  country,  the  root  of  a  tree  for  a  plough,  and  they  do  little 
more  than  scratch  the  soil.  An  American  plough,  either 
'breaker'  or  'subsoil,'  would  drive  the  natives  into  confluent 
hysterics,  and  the  sight  of  a  steam-plough  turning  half  a  dozen 
furrows  at  once  would  strike  them  dead  with  astonishment. 

The  first  time  the  "  Doubter"  saw  one  of  these  Syrian  scrap- 
ers, he  asked  what  it  was.     When  we  told  him  it  was  a  plough, 


^-,2 


THE    "  DOUBTER       ON    A    PLOUGH. 


he  said  he  knew  better,  and  we  needn't  try  to  "  play  it  on  him." 
Then  we  thought  it  might  be  a  horse-rake  or  a  wheel-barrow, 
possibly  a  brake  to  attach  to  a  fiery  saddle-horse  to  keep  him 
from  descending  a  hill  too  fast.  Then  we  concluded  it  might  be 
a  pillow  or  a  tooth-pick,  and  finally  a  part  of  the  equipment  of  a 
lunatic  asylum.  The  "  Doubter "  at  length  concluded  it  was  a 
weapon  of  warfare,  and  with  this  wise  conclusion  he  dropped  the 
subject. 


PLOUGHING   IN   SYRIA. 


Our  forenoon's  ride  from  this  camp  is  a  dreary  one.  We  have 
five  hours  of  it,  or  nearly  that  period,  in  a  wild  country  overlook- 
ing the  valley  of  the  Jordan  on  the  left,  and  having  no  attractions 
of  its  own.  It  is  a  scene  of  desolation.  There  were  no  trees — 
scarcely  is  there  any  vegetation,  and  the  only  inhabitants  are 
people  who  live  somewhere  else.  The  hot,  dry  landscape  is  un- 
forbidding  in  every  feature,  and  only  the  historic  character  of  the 
country  rewards  us  for  our  trouble. 

We  come  to  a  wretched  Khan,  which  is  said  to  contain  the  pit 
into  which  Joseph  was  thrown  before  he  was  sold  by  his  brethren. 
The  authenticity  of  the  story  rests  only  upon  tradition,  and  there 
are  two  or  three  other  places  in  the  country  which  claim  to  be  the 
real,  original,  Joseph's  pit.  They  show  us  the  hole,  which  is  cer- 
tainly capable  of  containing  a  man.     The  "  Doubter  "  does  not 


JOSEPHS    PIT  AND    THE    BOWERY    BOV.  333 

believe  it  is  the  real  pit,  because  he  cannot  see  the  footprints  of 
the  fellows  that  flung  their  brother  in.  Some  one  tells  the  story 
of  the  New  York  boot-black,  who  was  induced  one  day  to  go 
to  Sunday  school.  The  teacher  told  the  story  of  Joseph  and 
asked : 

"What  did  Joseph's  brethren  put  him  in  the  pit  for?" 

"  I  know,"  said  the  gamin,  with  a  confident  air. 

"  Then  tell  us." 

"Fifteen  cents  !"  shouted  the  young  vagabond. 

He  was  a  frequenter  of  the  old  Bowery  Theater,  and  familiar 
with  the  prices  at  that  establishment. 

But  we  are  in  haste  to  go  on ;  for  before  us  is  the  Sea  of  Galilee, 
shimmering  under  the  scorching  rays  of  a  Syrian  sun.  It  lies 
deep-set  in  a  basin  of  rough,  barren  mountains,  and  its  surface, 
as  we  first  look  upon  it,  is  very  far  below  us.  If  any  of  us  have 
pictured  a  lake,  surrounded  with  luxuriant  fields  and  shady  groves, 
its  waves  kissing  the  feet  of  waving  palms,  and  reflecting  the 
rich  foliage  of  the  tropics,  we  are  doomed  to  disappointment.  It 
is  a  scene  of  desolation,  akin  to  that  revealed  when  we  look  from 
the  bleak  hills  beyond  Bethlehem,  and  cast  our  vision  downward 
to  the  Dead  Sea.  The  country  must  have  undergone  a  great 
change  in  the  past  two  thousand  years,  as  we  cannot  understand 
how  it  could  support  the  population  that  history  accords  to  it. 

The  lake  is  oval  in  shape,  and  about  thirteen  miles  long  by  six 
in  width,  and  where  there  were  many  boats  in  Christ's  time, 
there  are  now  only  two.  These  are  devoted  more  to  the  ferriage 
of  travellers  and  their  excursions  to  points  of  interest  along  the 
shores,  than  to  the  fisheries.  A  favorite  mode  of  catching  fish 
at  the  present  time  is  to  poison  them  with  bread  crumbs  soaked 
in  corrosive  sublimate.  The  fish  die,  and  rise  to  the  surface, 
whence  they  are  gathered  and  taken  to  the  market  of  Tiberias 
for  sale.  The  natives  do  not  mind  any  little  trifle  like  this, 
but  foreigners  should  be  cautious  about  the  fish  that  they  eat. 

All  around  the  shore  of  the  lake  is  historic  ground.  We 
reach  it  at  Capernaum,  or  rather  at  one  of  the  three  points  claimed 
to  be  the  site  of  that  city,  and  known  by  the  modern  name  of 
Khan  Minyeh.  It  has,  perhaps,  the  best  claims  to  recognition, 
but  I  shall  not  attempt  to  say  that  it  is  or  is  not  the  real  place. 


334 


THE    BEGGARS    OF    MAGDALA. 


The  ruins  are  not  extensive,  and  can  be  seen  in  a  short  time. 
Traces  of  foundations  and  walls  of  buildings  can  be  found  here 
and  there  among  the  brushwood,  and  now  and  then  a  broken 
column  or  capital  rewards  the  search  of  the  explorer. 

Proceeding  along  the  western  bank  of  the  lake,  we  reach  Mag- 
dala,  the  birth-place  of  Mary  Magdalene.  The  shore  of  the  lake 
in  this  part  is  quite  fertile,  but  the  fertility  is  not  utilized,  except 
to  a  very  slight  degree.  Game  is  not  unknown  here,  but  the  varie- 
ties are  not  numerous.  Quails  are  abundant,  and  so  are  turtle 
doves.     "  The  voice  of  the  turtle  is  heard  in  the  land,"  is  sure  to 


ALL  THAT  REMAINS  OF  CAPERNAUM. 

be  repeated  by  some  one  of  the  party  as  we  ride  through  the 
tangle  of  thistles,  weeds,  and  brushwood  that  lines  the  way  from 
Capernaum  to  Magdala. 

In  itself,  and  without  its  historic  associations,  Magdala  is  of 
very  little  consequence.  It  contains  about  twenty  houses,  of  the 
Syrian  pattern,  flat-roofed,  and  not  over-pleasing  in  appearance. 
There  are  ruins  of  houses  of  a  more  pretentious  character,  and 
the  indications  are  general  that  there  was  once  a  town  here,  of 
some  consequence. 

The  inhabitants  come  out  of  their  squalid  dwellings  and  beg 
for  anything  we  choose  to  give.  Money,  old  clothes,  defaulted 
railway  bonds,  State  bonds,  shares  in  a  petroleum  company,  cold 
meat,  bound  volumes  of  newspaper  files,  and  anything  else  can 


WE    ASK    THEM    FOR    "  BACKSHEESH. 


335 


be  included  in  the  word  "  backsheesh."  It  is  a  generic,  not  a 
specific,  term,  and  those  who  continually  din  into  your  ears  the 
supplication,  "Backsheesh,  O  Howadji  !"  are  not  at  all  particular 
about  what  they  receive.  It  is  a  good  dodge  to  get  the  first 
innings  on  them  once  in  a  while.     When  you  catch  sight  of  a 


•'  BACKSHEESH  !    O   HOWADJI  !  " 

native  approaching  you,  it  is  morally  certain  that  he  intends  to 
beg.  Take  the  bull  by  the  horns,  approach  /a'm  and  ask  for 
"backsheesh."  He  will  generally  see  the  point,  though  he  does 
not  always  do  so. 

We  have  time  to  take  a  little  run  to  some  curious  caves  that 
lie  in  a  cliff  about  half  an  hour's  ride  from  Magdala.     A  steep  and 

21 


336  GEN.  herod's  little  game. 

narrow  path  leads  to  them,  and  while  we  are  climbing  it  we  see 
how  easily  the  caves  could  be  defended.  Their  origin  and  his- 
tory are  unknown,  and  they  were  evidently  the  work,  not  of  one, 
but  of  several  generations.  They  are  mentioned  by  Josephus  as 
fortified  caverns,  belonging  to  the  city  of  Arbela,  whose  ruins 
are  close  at  hand.  At  various  periods  they  have  been  the  resort 
of  bandits,  and  probably  would  be  so  at  present  if  the  bandit 
business  was  at  all  profitable.  Herod  the  Great  had  an  unpleas- 
antness with  some  free-booting  gentlemen  who  dwelt  in  these 
caves.  They  made  things  disagreeable  for  travellers  and  others, 
and  would  not  divide  with  the  King,  and  so  he  sent  an  army  to 
teach  them  better  manners  and  bring  their  heads  home  in  carpet- 
sacks.  But  the  fellows  defended  their  lives,  their  fortunes,  and 
their  sacred  honor  so  desperately,  and  had  so  good  a  place  to  de- 
fend them  in,  that  the  army  couldn't  gain  a  point  on  them. 

But  Gen.  Herod  knew  a  thing  or  two,  and  after  scratching  his 
head  awhile  over  the  problem,  he  sent  for  his  carpenters  and 
blacksmiths  and  ordered  them  to  get  their  tools  ready  and  then 
come  before  him  at  five  o'clock  the  next  morning. 

They  came,  they  saw,  (each  carpenter  had  one,)  and  they  con- 
curred with  him. 

"Go,"  said  the  general  to  the  carpenters,  "and  make  some  boxes 
of  strong  plank,  about  six  feet  square  and  four  feet  high.  Make 
them  as  strong  as  you  would  a  travelling  trunk  for  a  thousand- 
mile  journey  on  an  American  railway." 

Then  turning  to  the  blacksmiths  he  said: 

"And  you,  sons  of  Vulcan,  get  up  lots  of  ox-chains,  strong 
enough  to  support  these  boxes  with  a  thousand  pounds  in  each." 

"A  thousand  pounds,  in  sovereigns,  will  weigh  more  than  the 
same  amount  in  five-pun  notes,"  said  the  boss  blacksmith,  mus- 
ingly.    "  Does  Your  Majesty  pay  gold  or  paper  ?" 

"  A  thousand  pounds  avoirdupois,  you  idiot,"  replied  the  King. 
The  blacksmith  apologized,  and  whispered  to  his  neighbor  that 
he  thought  it  would  turn  out  so,  as  the  King  was  hard  up,  and 
couldn't  raise  five  hundred  guineas  in  a  month  unless  he  stole 
them. 

The  boxes  were  made,  and  the  ferblantiers  and  diarpentiers 
wondered  what  the  king  could  be  about.    When  they  were  ready, 


A  MASSACRE  OF  ROBBERS. 


339 


he  put  a  dozen  infantry  men  with  plenty  of  carbines  and  revolv- 
ers and  supplies  of  provisions  and  ammunition  into  each  box,  and 
lowered  the  whole  lot  of  them  simultaneously  down  the  face  of 
the  cliff  above  the  canals.  Thus  the  soldiers  were  enabled  to 
make  it  nasty  for  the  robbers.  They  killed  most  of  them,  and 
what  they  didn't  kill  they  flung  over  the  face  of  the  precipice. 

We  will  not  go  back  to  Magdala,  as  there  is  a  shorter  route  to 
Tiberias,  which  is  our  next  point  of  interest.  As  our  cavalcade 
enters  the  town,  the  inhabitants  turn  out  to  greet  us,  and  we 
hear  a  word  we  think  we  have  heard  before — "  backsheesh."  The 
people  differ  materially  from  those  of  Magdala  and  Capernaum, 


MAGDALA- 


in  being  more  numerous ;  in  other  respects  there  is  a  marked 
similarity.  They  wear  the  same  amount  of  dirt,  rags,  and  sore 
eyes,  and  an  ophthalmist  could  make  a  fortune  here,  provided  he 
could  get  rich  by  practicing  without  fees.  There  are  about  two 
thousand  inhabitants,  one-third  of  them  Jews,  and  they  are  a 
very  seedy  and  unhappy  lot  of  Israelites.  I  presume  that  those 
who  are  born  in  Tiberias  want  to  die  there,  and  to  look  at  them 
one  would  think  that  they  ought  to  wish  to  die  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible. Tiberias  is  a  sacred  place  for  the  Jews,  as  they  believe 
that  the  Messiah  will  rise  from  the  sea  of  Galilee,  and  after  land- 
ing in  the  city  will  proceed  to  the  summit  of  Mount  Safed,  which 


240  WHAT    AN    EARTHQUAKE    DID. 

is  not  far  away.  Comparatively  few  of  the  Jews  speak  Arabic  ; 
they  are  divided  into  two  sects,  one  of  Russian  and  the  other  of 
Spanish  origin,  so  that  they  use  the  languages  of  the  countries 
whence  they  or  their  ancestors  came.  They  are  not  on  the  best 
of  terms  with  their  neighbors,  and  live  in  a  part  of  the  town  as- 
signed to  them. 

Tiberias  once  had  a  wall  ;  the  remains  of  it  are  there  yet,  and 
it  was  in  tolerable  condition  until  about  forty  years  ago,  when  an 
earthquake  played  the  mischief  with  it  and  left  it  full  of  great 
gaps  and  cracks  that  are  anything  but  pleasing.  Your  earth- 
quake, a  real,  first-class  one,  is  a  consummation  not  devoutly  to 
be  wished. 

The  ancient  city  is  scattered  promiscuously  along  the  shore  of 
the  lake,  but  there  isn't  enough  of  it  to  make  more  than  half-a- 
dozen  hog-yards.  The  modern  town  has  absorbed  nearly  all  that 
was  worth  absorbing. 

There  is  a  Latin  convent  at  Tiberias,  with  a  church  attached 
to  it,  which  is  regarded  with  veneration  by  many  Christian 
pilgrims.  Like  Jerusalem,  Tiberias  is  a  sacred  spot  for  both 
Christian  and  Jew,  and  thousands  of  Jews  consider  it  a  bless- 
ing to  be  buried  there,  and  it  certainly  would  be  a  blessing  to 
bury  those  that  we  see  in  Tiberias.  It  was  at  one  time  their 
chief  residence  in  Palestine,  and  was  their  most  prominent  city 
for  more  than  three  hundred  years.  Tiberias  has  been  in  the 
hands  of  Jews,  Persians,  Arabs,  and  Crusaders,  and  has  had 
the  usual  misfortunes  of  Oriental  towns 

There  are  some  warm  baths  near  Tiberias,  and  they  are  highly 
recommended  to  strangers.  The  natives  never  patronize  these 
baths  or  any  other.  The  only  time  a  Syrian  washes  himself  is 
when  he  gets  caught  in  a  shower,  without  an  umbrella,  and  can't 
find  any  shelter,  or  get  home. 

All  around  the  lake  there  are  historic  spots.  Days  could  be 
spent  in  a  study  of  the  places  whose  names  have  been  made 
familiar  to  us  by  a  perusal  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments. 


CHAPTER     XXVI. 


IN  THE  HEART  OF  PALESTINE. 


Bathing  in  the  Sea  of  Galilee — Standing  on  holy  ground — How  the  "  Doubter  "  was 
unhorsed — A  second  Absalom — Lunching  on  the  summit  of  Tabor — Saracenic 
Vengeance — A  Reminiscence  of  the  Crusades — A  magnificent  Sight — Discussing 
"  Backsheesh  "  with  the  natives— The  "  Doubter  "  as  a  Cashier— The  Grotto  of 
the  Holy  Family— Mary's  house— The  house  of  Loretto — The  story  of  the  Miracle 
— The  Monk  and  the  "  Doubter  "—Dean  Stanley's  explanation— Joseph's  Tool 
Chest— The  "Doubter's"  demand— The  Witch  of  Endor  "at  home  "—Blood- 
Revenge — A  pertinacious  feud — Saul  and  the  Witch. 

WE  have  bathed  in  the  Sea  of  Galilee  and  played  with  the 
pebbles  on  its  sandy  beach  ;  we  have  visited  places  named 
in  Holy  Writ,  and  henceforth  their  mention  will  have  for  us  an 
additional  charm.  And  now  we  will  fold  our  tents  like  the 
Arabs,  (or  let  the  Arabs  fold  them  for  us,)  and  as  silently  steal 
away.     Our  faces  are  turned  towards  Jerusalem. 

Our  horses  toil  slowly  up  the  ascent — a  long  and  weary  one — 
which  leads  from  the  shore  of  the  sea  of  Galilee.  At  Tiberias 
we  are  six  hundred  feet  below  the  level  of  the  Mediterranean. 
The  plain  which  we  are  now  approaching  is  five  hundred  feet 
above  us,  and  consequently  we  must  make  an  elevation  of  eleven 
hundred  feet  to  gain  it.  The  way  is  rough  in  many  places,  and 
we  wonder  how  it  has  been  allowed  to  remain  so  in  all  the 
thousands  of  years  that  it  has  been  in  use. 

As  we  emerge  from  the  deep  basin  which  encloses  the  lake  we 
see  before  us  a  mountain,  like  a  huge  mound  or  tumulus,  rising 
out  of  the  plain  and  dominating  it  in  all  directions.     It  is  Mouot 

(340 


342 


THE    "  DOUBTER  S       MISHAP. 


Tabor,  and  beyond  it  is  the  plai^  of  Esdraelon.  Between  us  and 
the  base  of  the  mountain  lies  an  undulating  plateau  over  which 
we  find  an  easier  road  than  the  one  we  have  just  been  climbing. 

We  are  on  the  great  route  of  the  caravans,  between  Egypt  and 
Damascus,  and  the  first  objects  of  interest  are  the  ruins  of  "  The 
Merchants'  Caravansary,"  or — in  the  language  of  the  country — 
Khan-et-Tiijar ;  one  of  the  pashas  of 
Damascus  built  it  about  three  hundred 
years  ago,  for  the  protection  of  the  cara- 
vans which  were  often  troubled  by 
robbers  in  those  days,  but  the  buildings 
long  ago  ceased  to  be  of  any  use,  and 
have  been  allowed  to  go  to  decay. 
They  are  worth  an  examination,  as 
specimens  of  modern  Saracenic 
architecture,  and  this  is  all. 

We  press  forward  toward 
Mount  Tabor,  and  in  an  hour 
or  more  are  at  its  base.  W( 
ascend  by  a  diffi- 
cult path  that 
winds  among 
oaks  and  thickets 
of  thorn  bushes, 
and  are  brought 
to  occasional 
halts  by  the 
slipping  of  sad- 
dles and  other 
slight  mishaps. 
The  "Doubter" 
comes  to  grief 
while  passing  under  an  oak  from  which  he  has  attempted 
to  pluck  a  stick  to  serve  as  a  whip.  His  hand  has  caught 
in  the  branches,  his  horse  does  not  stop  to  ask  what  is  the 
matter,  and  the  next  instant  horse  and  rider  have  parted  com- 
pany. The  horse  goes  on  as  if  nothing  had  happened,  and 
the  "  Doubter,"  after  hanging  an  instant,  and  reminding  the  per- 


UMIORSING   THE  "DOUBTER. 


THE    SUMMIT    OF    MOUNT    TABOR-  343 

son  next  behind  him  of  the  misfortune  of  Absalom,  drops  into 
the  path  below.  The  horse  is  caught  by  some  one  in  advance ; 
the  "  Doubter"  is  picked  up  and  put  together  and  after  swallow- 
ing a  dose  of  brandy  is  lifted  into  his  saddle  and  enjoined  to  let 
the  oak  limbs  alone  in  future.  He  bends  so  low  for  the  rest 
of  the  ride,  that  his  nose  almost  touches  the  mane  of  his  steed. 
He  is  determined  not  to  get  into  trouble  again. 

We  reach  the  summit — fourteen  hundred  feet  above  the  sea — 
and  dismount  from  our  panting  horses.  Lunch  is  served  under 
one  of  the  oak  trees  that  invites  us  to  rest  beneath  its  foliage,  and 
we  endeavor  to  make  ourselves  comfortable.  After  lunch  we  de- 
vote a  couple  of  hours  to  a  ramble  around  the  spot ;  we  might 
camp  here,  but  we  prefer  to  pass  the  night  at  Nazareth,  whither 
our  camp  was  moved  when  we  started  from  Tiberias. 

We  now  find  that  Tabor  is  not  circular  in  shape,  but  oval,  the 
greatest  measurement  being  from  East  to  West.  The  summit 
is  slightly  rounded  and  is  about  a  thousand  yards  long  by  half 
that  in  width.  There  are  many  ruins  on  the  summit,  or  rather 
masses  of  ruins  ;  the  principal  thing  to  attract  the  attention  is  a 
massive  wall,  or  the  remains  of  one,  which  enclose  the  most  of* 
the  space.  It  was  evidently  a  stronghold  in  its  time,  and  was 
defended  by  bastions  and  towers,  and  gateways,  one  of  which  is 
still  standing.  There  are  the  foundations  of  houses,  some  of 
them  of  considerable  size,  and  we  have  no  hesitation  in  accept- 
ing the  statement  that  a  strong  and  important  town  once  stood 
here.  There  are  cisterns  hewn  in  the  solid  rock,  and  they  have 
continued  their  uses  down  to  the  present  time.  We  are  permit- 
ted to  slake  our  thirst  with  water,  drawn  from  one  of  these  cis- 
terns— cisterns  from  which  men  have  drank  in  all  ages,  from  the 
days  of  Moses  to  the  present  time.  Barak  drank  here  when  he 
assembled  the  hosts  of  Napthali  to  attack  Sisera,  the  captain  of 
Jabin's  army ;  Joshua  and  Gideon  may  have  stood  by  this  very 
well ;  here  stood  the  Crusaders  when  they  advanced  upon  Jeru- 
salem, and  here  a  few  years  later  Saladin  may  have  rested,  as  he 
exulted  over  the  victory  that  expelled  the  hated  Christian  from 
the  land.  If  we  are  imaginative,  we  can  picture  a  kaleidoscope 
of  warriors,  who  fill  the  pages  of  sacred  and  profane  history  and 
stalk  before  us  like  the  line  of  Banquo's  Kings,  which  the  witches 


344  A    MAGNIFICENT    VIEW. 

revealed  to  Macbeth,  and  if,  like  the  "  Doubter,"  we  are  unimag- 
inative and  do  not  believe,  or  care  for  anything,  we  will  eat  our 
cold  chicken  and  boiled  eggs,  and  say  nothing. 

The  best  view  of  this  part  of  Palestine  is  obtained  from  Mount 
Tabor.  The  plain  of  Esdraelon  is  before  us,  or  rather  below  us, 
and  we  can  contemplate  its  undulations,  its  stipples  of  villages, 
its  dark  dots  of  trees,  its  ravines  and  its  bright  verdure — if  the 
season  is  propitious — as  we  contemplate  from  our  easy  chair  the 
figures  upon  our  carpet.  On  the  East  we  see  the  valley  of  the 
Jordan  and  the  mountains  of  Gilead,  rising  like  a  long  and  rug- 
ged wall  from  the  deep  clift  where  the  river  flows.  Hermon  and 
the  range  of  Lebanon  fill  the  north  and  the  ruin-crowned  summit 
of  Safed — the  holy  mount  of  the  Jews  where  was  "  the  city  set 
upon  the  hill,"  is  full  before  us.  In  the  West  is  Mount  Carmel, 
the  scene  of  Elijah  s  sacrifice — reverenced  alike  by  Jew,  Christian, 
and  Moslem  through  all  ages  down  to  the  present  day.  No  other 
place  disputes  the  honor,  and  Carmel  is  destined  to  possess  it  for 
all  time  to  come. 

South  of  us  we  have  the  mountain  of  Little  Hermon,  with  the 
villages  of  Nain  and  Endor  and  other  villages  not  far  away.  On 
the  plain  below  were  fought  the  battles  of  Barak  and  Sisera,  and 
the  guide  points  out  the  spot  where  the  hosts  were  assembled. 

In  another  direction  he  points  out  the  scene  of  the  battle  of 
Hattin  where,  nearly  seven  hundred  years  ago,  the  Crusaders 
were  defeated,  and  their  hold  upon  Palestine  was  broken.  Both 
armies  were  in  full  force  ;  that  of  the  Christians  was  led  by  the 
King  of  Jerusalem,  and  that  of  the  Moslems  by  the  great  Saladin. 
The  Christian  army  came  to  this  plain  and  encamped  there  with- 
out water  and  greatly  fatigued  by  their  march.  The  Moslem  army 
attacked  them  at  dawn,  and  all  day  the  battle  continued.  At  its 
end  the  Christians  had  been  overpowered  with  a  loss  of  thirty 
thousand  men.  The  remnant  of  the  army  fled  to  Acre,  but  the 
King  was  captured,  together  with  the  Grand  Master  of  the  Temp- 
lars and  Raynauld  of  Chatillon. 

Saladin  had  threatened  to  put  to  death,  with  his  own  hand, 
this  Raynauld  through  whose  treachery  the  war  had  been  brought 
on.  He  treated  the  other  captives  with  the  respect  which  their 
rank  deserved,  but  showed  the  utmost  contempt  for  Raynauld, 


FEASTS   AND    FESTIVALS    OF    THE    MONKS.  347 

towards  whom  he  kept  his  word  Raynauld  was  executed  ;  the 
other  prisoners  were  liberated  and  allowed  honorable  escort  out 
of  the  country.  Saladin  was  a  noble  old  warrior,  and  he  had  the 
instincts  of  a  gentleman,  though  he  never  wore  a  dress-coat  and 
kid  gloves,  and  did  not  understand  how  to  dance  the  German  or 
escort  a  lady  to  the  opera. 

Mount  Tabor  disputes  with  Hermon  the  honor  of  the  Trans- 
figuration. The  tradition  which  locates  it  here  dates  from  the 
fourth  century,  and  was  then  generally  believed.  Churches  and 
convents  were  erected  on  the  summit  of  Tabor,  and  many  pil- 
grimages were  made  there,  and  when  the  Crusaders  came  to 
Palestine  they  established  a  monastery  there,  and  gave  its  abbot 
the  authority  of  a  bishop.  The  Greek  monks  come  here  in  pro- 
cession from  Nazareth,  on  the  occasion  of  the  Feast  of  the  Vir- 
gin, and  the  Latin  monks  have  a  festival,  once  a  year,  in  honor 
of  the  Transfiguration.  The  exact  location  which  the  monks 
give  for  the  miraculous  event  is  near  the  southeastern  angle  of 
the  fortifications,  where  a  vault  has  been  fitted  up  as  an  altar. 

We  descend  from  Tabor  in  the  direction  of  Nazareth,  and  a 
ride  of  two  hours  from  the  summit  brings  us  to  our  camp.  The 
road  is  crooked  and  narrow,  and  winds  among  forests  of  oaks  and 
tangles  of  brush,  until  within  a  mile  or  more  of  Nazareth,  when 
we  get  among  bare  hills.  A  little  out  of  our  way  is  the  dirty 
village  of  Deburich,  on  the  site  of  Dabareth,  which  is  mentioned 
twice  in  the  Old  Testament.  There  is  nothing  attractive  about 
the  place ;  it  has  the  repulsive  features  of  most  of  the  Syrian 
villages,  and  you  wonder  how  the  natives  manage  to  live,  or  even 
wish  to  do  so.  They  discuss  the  "  backsheesh  "  question  with 
us,  and  we  have  the  whole  perambulating  mass  of  dirt,  rags,  and 
sores  adhering  to  us  from  the  moment  we  enter  the  place  until 
we  are  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away.  We  set  them  upon  the 
"  Doubter,"  by  giving  them  to  understand  that  he  is  the  cashier 
of  the  party,  but  unfortunately  they  don't  stick  to  him  long  enough 
to  give  the  rest  of  us  any  peace. 

There  are  several  objects  of  interest  here  connected  with  the 
life  of  Christ.  The  guide  takes  us  to  the  Virgin's  Fountain,  and 
to  the  church  and  convent  erected  over  the  grotto  which  is  said 
to  have  been  the  dwelling  place  of  the  Holy  Family.     The  town 


348  SYRIAN    VAGABONDS. 

is  situated  in  some  ravines  and  along  some  ridges  on  the  side  of 
a  hill  overlooking  the  plain  of  Esdraelon,  and  the  buildings  ap- 
pear to  have  been  dropped  down  higgledy-piggledy,  without  any 
regard  for  regularity.  The  houses  are  better  than  those  of  many 
Syrian  villages,  as  they  are  built  of  stone  and  are  kept  clean  in 
all  the  places  where  dirt  cannot  accumulate.  But  they  are  re- 
pulsive enough  inside,  and  one  needs  a  pair  of  stilts  to  enable 
him  to  walk  through  the  streets  without  soiling  his  boots. 

The  population  is  variously  estimated — no  census  is  ever 
taken — at  from  three  to  four  thousand.  Only  about  seven  hun- 
dred of  these  are  Moslems  ;  the  rest  are  Christians  of  three  or 
four  kinds,  with  the  addition  of  a  few  Jews,  who  must  be  very 
unhappy  among  so  many  people  of  a  different  faith.  But,  taken 
altogether,  the  inhabitants  are  not  a  pleasing  lot,  and  as  you  look 
at  them,  you  do  not  wonder  that  the  question  was  once  asked, 
"  Can  any  good  thing  come  out  of  Nazareth  ?" 

Nazareth  was  unknown  in  history  until  the  Annunciation. 
The  event  has  been  commemorated  by  the  erection  of  a  Latin 
convent,  where  a  Greek  church  once  stood  over  the  site  of  the 
house  of  Mary. 

The  convent  is  of  considerable  extent,  and  has  a  massive  ex- 
terior, followed  by  equal  massiveness  within.  The  church  is 
about  seventy  feet  square  in  its  interior  dimensions,  and  the  roof 
is  supported  by  strong  piers,  which  are  covered,  as  are  also  the 
walls,  with  paintings  representing  scriptural  scenes.  A  flight  of 
steps,  fifteen  in  number,  leads  down  to  the  chapel  beneath  the 
church,  and  in  this  chapel  the  scene  of  the  Annunciation  is 
located. 

You  first  enter  a  vestibule  about  twenty-five  feet  by  ten,  and 
from  this  we  enter  the  sanctum,  which  is  of  about  the  same  di- 
mensions. It  contains  a  marble  altar  and  a  marble  slab,  with  a 
cross  upon  it,  which  marks  the  spot  where  the  Virgin  stood  at 
the  time  of  the  Annunciation.  They  show  us  a  marble  column 
cut  in  two,  one  part  apparently  suspended  from  the  roof  and  the 
other  a  little  way  below  it,  and  resting  on  the  floor.  The  monks 
solemnly  tell  us,  that  the  invading  infidels  cut  through  this  col- 
umn, in  the  hope  of  bringing  down  the  roof,  but  a  miracle  inter- 
posed to  uphold  the  column  and  has  kept  it  there  to  this  day. 


JKWS  OF  NAZARKTH. 


THE    HOUSE    OF    LORETTO. 


351 


Then  they  take  us  into  a  grotto  back  of  the  altar  and  up  a 
staircase  into  the  Virgin's  kitchen,  which  is  only  a  small  cave, 
and  must  have  been  a  very  poor  sort  of  kitchen  at  best.  The 
monks  manifest  much  veneration  for  the  Sacred  Grotto,  and 
pious  people  from  Christian  lands  have  made  handsome  donations 
for  the  support  of  the  church  at  Nazareth.  As  the  church  stands 
over  the  site  of  the  house  of  Mary,  the  "  Doubter  "  demands  to 
see  the  house.  The  guide  tells  him  that  it  is  gone,  and  while  he 
is  trying  to  make  his  statement  understood,  one  of  the  English- 
speaking  monks  puts  in  a  word : 

"  You  should  understand,"  he  says,  "  that  the  house  is  at  Lo- 
retto,  in  Italy,  and  that  Loretto  is  called  the  Nazareth  of  Italy. 
It  is  the  house  that  was  here  once,  the  real  house  of  the  Virgin 
Mary." 

"  Yes,  but  how  did  it  get  there  .'*"  asked  the  "  Doubter."  "Who 
moved  it,  and  how  was  it  done  ?  I  don't  believe  you  could  move 
one  of  these  stone  houses  all  the  way  to  Italy." 

"  Ah,  there  is  the  miracle,  and  I  will  tell  you,"  says  the  monk, 
and  he  begins  to  rattle  away  as  though  he  had  committed  the 
story  to  memory  from  a  guide  book. 

"The  house  stood  here  for  hundreds  of  years,  and  then  it  hap- 
pened that  the  Moslems  defeated  the  Christians  in  battle,  and 
threatened  to  destroy  everything  in  Nazareth.  They  were 
camped  in  the  plain,  and  sent  an  army  up  here.  Just  as  the 
army  came  to  the  edge  of  the  town,  some  angels  came  down  and 
took  the  house  away.  They  carried  it  to  Europe,  and  set  it  down 
on  a  hill  near  Fiume,  in  Dalmatia,  and  then,  when  it  was  found 
that  the  place  wasn't  safe,  they  took  it  away  to  Loretto,  and  there 
it  is  now." 

"  Very  strange,"  says  the  "  Doubter,"  "  very  strange.  And  do 
they  do  this  sort  of  thing  often  r 

"  Not  often,"  replies  the  monk.  "  You  see  it  was  a  miracle  ; 
and  if  they  performed  miracles  every  day  they  wouldn't  be 
miracles." 

The  "Doubter"  says  he  doesn't  believe  a  word  of  it,  and  turns 
away.     The  monk  continues  his  account,  and  says  : 

"  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  house  is  in  Italy,  and  that  it 
was  moved  by  a  miracle.     It  was  known  to  be  there  more  than 


352  "Joseph's  workshop." 

four  hundred  years  ago,  and  the  Pope,  Leo  X,  told  all  about  it  in 
a  papal  bull,  in  the  year  1518,  and  authenticated  it  so  that  there 
could  be  no  chance  for  any  body  to  disbelieve  " 

Of  course,  there  could  be  no  chance  after  this.  Dean  Stanley 
thus  explains  this  matter  : 

"Nazareth  was  taken  by  Sultan  Kalil  in  1291,  when  he  stormed 
the  last  refuge  of  the  Crusaders  in  the  neighboring  city  of  Acre. 
From  that  time,  not  Nazareth  only,  but  the  whole  of  Palestine, 
was  closed  to  the  devotions  of  Europe.  The  Crusaders  were  ex- 
pelled from  Asia,  and  in  Europe  the  spirit  of  the  Crusades  was 
extinct.  But  the  natural  longing  to  see  the  scenes  of  the  events 
of  the  sacred  history — the  superstitious  craving  to  win  for  prayer 
the  favor  of  consecrated  localities — did  not  expire  with  the  Cru- 
sades. Can  we  wonder  that,  under  such  circumstances,  there 
should  have  arisen  the  feeling,  the  desire,  the  belief,  that  if  Ma- 
homet could  not  go  to  the  mountain,  the  mountain  must  come  to 
Mahomet  ?  The  House  of  Loretto  is  the  petrifaction,  so  to 
speak,  of  the  '  last  sigh  of  the  Crusades.' " 

From  the  Church  of  the  Annunciation  we  are  taken  through 
some  of  the  dirty  streets  and  alleys,  to  Joseph's  workshop — a 
modern  building  fitted  up  as  a  chapel  and  held  by  the  Latin 
monks.  The  structure  -is  modern,  but  they  show  an  old  wall,  or 
a  fragment  of  it,  in  the  interior,  and  this  is  quite  sufficient. 

The  "  Doubter  "  asks  for  Joseph's  tool-chest,  and  insists  upon 
seeing  it.  They  compromise  the  matter  by  bringing  an  axe 
of  a  very  modern  pattern,  and  bearing  the  word  '  Birmingham  ' 
on  the  helve.  This  might  do  for  one  of  the  faithful,  but  the 
"  Doubter"  won't  swallow  it,  (not  the  axe,  but  the  story,)  in  spite 
of  the  urgent  assurance  of  the  rest  of  us  that  it  is  all  right. 

Then  they  take  us  to  "  the  Table  of  Christ,"  where,  according 
to  tradition,  our  Saviour  sat  frequently  with  his  disciples,  both 
before  and  after  the  resurrection.  It  is  only  a  table-shaped  rock, 
about  three  feet  high,  and  a  chapel  has  been  built  over  it. 

The  rivalry  between  the  Greek  and  Latin  churches  is  very 
bitter,  and  the  monks  at  Nazareth  tell  some  hard  stories  about 
each  other.  Their  traditions  do  not  agree  in  many  points,  and 
they  are  very  tenacious  about  them.  Thus,  the  Greeks  claim 
that  the  angel's  first  salutation  to  Mary  was  at  the  fountain,  on 


LOVE-MAKING    AT    THE    FOUNTAIN. 


353 


the  eastern  side  of  the  village,  where  she  went  often  to  draw 
water.  It  is  called  the  Fountain  of  the  Virgin,  and  the  Greeks 
have  erected  a  church  over  it  and  called  it  the  Church  of  the 
Annunciation.  In  order  to  be  impartial  to  the  Greeks  and  Latins, 
every  traveller  should  visit  both  churches. 

The  fountain  is  interesting,  as  affording  a  study  of  the  habits 
of  the  people.     The  young  women,  and  old  ones  too,  come  there 


A   SYRIAN   WATER   BEARER. 


to  draw  water  and  gossip  and  make  eyes  at  the  young  men,  tell 
all  the  late  scandals,  discuss  the  fashions,  and  display  their  pride, 
envy,  friendliness,  humility,  and  all  the  other  sentiments  and 
emotions  that  can  be  exhibited  at  such  a  place.  How  the  gossip- 
ing tongues  must  have  wagged  at  this  fountain  eighteen  hundred 
years  ago!  and  didn't  they  criticise  Mary  and  her  family.-*  The 
pretty,  bare-footed  girl  who  came  daily  to  the  fountain,  to  fill  her 
jar,  which  she  poised  on  her  head  before  tripping  gracefully  home- 


354  BLOOD-REVENGE. 

ward,  little  dreaming  that  she  was  to  be  the  mother  of  one  who 
should  preach  salvation  to  the  world  and  found  a  religion  to  be 
embraced  by  all  the  civilized  nations  on  the  globe. 

But  we  will  leave  Nazareth  and  wend  our  way  southward. 

We  ride  to  Endor  over  a  rough  and  rather  dreary  road,  that 
winds  over  hills  and  through  glens  where  robbers  might  waylay 
us,  and  where  men  have  been  waylaid  on  many  occasions.  In 
this  part  of  the  country  murders  are  not  infrequent,  and  are 
caused  chiefly  by  feuds  between  tribes  and  families.  Some  of  these 
feuds  date  back  hundreds  of  years,  and  are  based  on  the  Scrip- 
tural theory  of  blood-revenge.  Centuries  ago  there  may  have 
been  a  quarrel  between  two  men,  about  some  trivial  matter,  and 
the  quarrel  may  have  gone  on  till  one  of  the  men  killed  the  other. 
Then  a  relative  of  the  murdered  man  killed  the  murderer  or  one 
of  his  family,  then  this  killing  was  avenged,  then  this,  and  then 
this  ;  so  it  has  gone  and  will  go  on,  until  one  family  is  anni- 
hilated, and  possibly  both,  and  very  often  the  feud  extends  to  the 
different  tribes.  It  is  for  this  reason  so  many  men  go  about  with 
guns  and  pistols  and  eye  each  other  so  cautiously. 

Nearly  everybody,  to  use  the  vernacular  of  California,  is  "  hunt- 
ing for  a  man,"  and  sooner  or  later  he  finds  him,  or  is  found.  It 
is  rather  respectable  than  otherwise  to  die  with  one's  boots  on, 
here,  just  as  it  used  to  be  in  Arizona  ;  and  it  is  currently  reported 
that  when  a  man  thinks  he  has  had  about  enough  of  his  native 
Syria,  and  has  no  row  on  his  hands,  he  goes  and  kills  somebody, 
so  that  this  somebody's  relatives  will  turn  to  and  kill  Jiim.  He  is 
thus  able  to  accomplish  two  things — he  can  die  like  a  gentleman, 
with  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  he  has  put  somebody  else 
out  of  the  world  in  an  equally  gentlemanly  way.  And  more- 
over, he  bequeaths  a  legacy  of  blood-revenge  to  his  descendants, 
that  will  give  them  something  to  occupy  their  minds  with,  and 
prevents  the  country  becoming  peopled  too  densely  for  comfort. 

Endor  is  an  uninteresting  village,  of  not  more  than  twenty-five 
houses,  and  it  is  the  same  thing  over  again — dirt,  rags,  and 
wretchedness — such  as  we  have  seen  all  the  way  along.  We  have 
had  enough  of  it — let  us  move  on. 


CHAPTER     XXVII. 

THE   LAND   OF  THE   PHILISTINES.— SAMARIA   AND    ITS   PEOPLE. 

The  City  of  Nain — "  Spoiling  the  Egyptians  " — Ruins  of  an  old  Philistine  City — 
Curious  Strategy — The  Torches  in  Pitchers — Kleber  and  the  Turks — Ahab's 
Palace — Tropical  Picture — A  Crusader's  Church — More  "Backsheesh" — The 
Samaritans  of  To-day — The  Mount  of  Blessings  and  the  Mount  of  Cursings — 
A  Desp-sed  People — A  Strange  Religious  Belief — A  Parchment  Thirty-five  Cen- 
turies Old— Jacob's  Well — Its  Present  Appearance — The  Tomb  of  Joseph — The 
Scene  of  Jacob's  Dream — The  Philistines'  Raid. 


A  RIDE  of  less  than  an  hour  from  Endor  takes  us  to  Nain, 
the  "City"  of  Christ's  time,  but  now  a  small  village.  The 
ruins  show  that  the  place  was  once  important,  and  the  guides 
point  out  the  old  cemetery,  at  whose  gate  the  miracle  is  located. 
As  we  ride  on,  we  pass  the  valley  of  Jezreel,  a  fertile  spot, 
which  might  be  made  productive  in  the  hands  of  some  other  people 
than  these  lazy,  shiftless  Syrians.  The  inhabitants  are  a  mixed 
lot,  as  they  include,  besides  the  regular  hash  of  Moslems,  Chris- 
tians, and  Jews,  a  colony  of  Egyptians  brought  here  by  Ibrahim 
Pasha.  These  fellows  were  put  here,  because  of  the  richness  of 
the  soil,  and  the  stern  old  warrior  thought  he  had  given  them  a 
good  thing.  But  they  have  an  impression  that  it  is  more  honor- 
able to  steal  than  to  work,  and  consequently  make  it  rather  dis- 
agreeable for  their  neighbors.  The  latter  get  even  with  them, 
by  making  occasional  raids  in  return,  and  justifying  themselves 
by  some  remark  .or  other  about  "  spoiling  the  Egyptians."  From 
what  I  can  learn  of  their  history,  I  think  these  Egyptians  were 
pretty  well  spoiled  before  they  came  to  Syria. 

(355) 


356  CUTTING    UP    CHRISTIANS. 

By  going  a  little  out  of  way  we  can  visit  Beisan,  the  ancient 
Bethshean,  whose  ruins  cover  an  area  nearly  three  miles  in  cir- 
cumference. It  was  a  city  of  temples  ;  four  of  these  can  be 
distinctly  traced  in  one  group,  and  others  are  scattered  around 
promiscuously.  Bethshean  was  of  Phoenician  origin,  and  was 
the  principal  abiding  place  of  the  Philistine  god,  Dagon.  The 
citadel  stood  on  the  hill,  overlooking  the  city,  and  on  its  walls 
the  Philistines  hung  up  the  bodies  of  Saul  and  Jonathan. 

The  "  Doubter,"  on  hearing  this,  looks  for  the  bodies,  and  un- 
able to  find  them,  refuses  to  believe  any  part  of  the  story. 

Below  the  citadel  is  the  theatre,  semi-circular  in  shape,  and  nearly 
two  hundred  feet  in  diameter.  Tradition  says  that  Julian,  the 
Apostate,  used  to  give  matinee  performances  here  to  his  friends, 
at  which  he  occasionally  had  a  lot  of  Christians  cut  up.  They 
were  popular  for  a  time,  but  the  shrieks  of  the  victims  interfered 
so  much  with  the  conversation  in  the  boxes  and  with  peanut- 
selling  in  the  galleries,  that  the  show  had  to  be  given  up. 

There  is  a  large  fountain — Ain-Jalud — in  this  valley,  where 
Gideon  is  said  to  have  fought  his  celebrated  battle  with  theMidian- 
ites,  described  in  the  Old  Testament,  when  he  ordered  his  men  to 
conceal  their  torches  in  pitchers,  which  they  were  to  break  when 
the  proper  signal  was  given.  It  was  one  of  the  best  pieces  of 
strategy  on  record,  and  was  brilliantly  successful. 

Several  battles  have  been  fought  in  this  valley  and  in  its  neigh- 
borhood. The  latest  was  that  between  the  French  and  Turkish 
armies  in  1799.  Gen.  Kleber  had  moved  from  Nazareth  to  attack 
the  Turks,  and  was  met  by  the  enemy  near  the  village  of  Fuleh. 
He  formed  his  army  into  squares,  with  artillery  at  the  angles, 
and  in  this  way  resisted  the  charges  of  cavalry  for  six  long  hours. 
He  had  three  thousand  men  and  the  Turks  were  fifteen  thousand 
strong,  but  the  effective  fire  of  the  French  held  the  enemy  in 
check,  in  spite  of  their  determined  bravery.  At  the  end  of  six 
hours,  Napoleon  arrived  with  fresh  cavalry  and  infantry  and  at- 
tacked the  Turks  on  flank  and  rear.  Thus  surrounded,  the  lat- 
ter became  panic  stricken,  and  retired  in  disorder,  with  heavy  loss. 
It  was  the  discipline  of  Kleber's  division  and  its  powers  of  con- 
tinued resistance,  that  gave  the  victory  to  the  French. 

We  soon  arrive  at  the  modern  village  of  Sebustieh,  which 


IN    A    CITY    OF    REFUGE.  357 

Stands  on  the  site  of  Samaria  and  has  a  population  of  four 
or  five  hundred  Moslems,  badly  disposed  towards  strangers. 
The  Crusaders  built  a  church  here  and  dedicated  it  to  St. 
John,  but  it  has  been  converted  into  a  mosque,  that  cannot  be 
entered  without  the  use  of  the  magical  "  backsheesh."  And 
this  has  to  be  applied  skillfully,  to  avoid  offense ;  a  very  good 
way  is  to  take  the  keeper  of  the  mosque  into  your  confidence  and 
do  the  "  backsheesh"  business  through  him  Give  him  a  fair 
allowance  of  piasters  to  distribute  to  the  crowd  after  you  have 
gone,  and  he  will  generally  set  his  cudgel  at  work  among  them.  He 
is  an  honorable  man,  and  you  can  feel  certain  that  he  will  faith- 
fully distribute  the  money — to  himself.  Samaria  was  a  fine  ciiy  in 
its  time,  and  the  ruins  that  cover  the  hill  confirm  the  accounts  of 
the  historians.  Many  of  the  stones  of  the  old  temples  and 
colonnades  have  been  built  into  the  walls  and  terraces  of  the 
modern  town  so  that  the  extent  of  the  city  is  not  perceptible 
to  a  casual  observer. 

From  Nazareth  to  Nablous,  we  cross  the  basin  just  described, 
and  climb  a  long  ascent  to  the  crest  of  a  ridge.  Thence  our  road 
is  through  glens  and  over  hills,  but  it  is  less  rough  than  most  of 
the  routes  we  have  heretofore  traveled.  Nablous  is  a  city  of  about 
eight  thousand  inhabitants.  This  is  the  ancient  Shechem,  which 
was  assigned  to  the  Levites  and  made  a  city  of  refuge — a  place 
where  a  man  who  had  murdered  anybody  or  otherwise  shocked 
the  fastidiousness  of  his  neighbors,  could  live  a  virtuous  and 
respectable  life  and  be  safe  from  harm.  No  extradition  treaty 
could  touch  him,  and  he  might  hope  in  course  of  time,  to 
become  mayor  or  alderman  in  his  new  home,  and  have  a  finger 
in  the  city  treasury.  The  authorities  used  to  try  the  refugees 
who  came  there,  and,  in  case  of  wilful  murder,  the  fellows  were 
delivered  up  to  justice.  But  if  the  trials  were  anything  like 
those  of  murderers  in  olden  times,  it  was  a  pretty  safe  thing  for 
a  man  to  get  into  a  city  of  refuge,  as  he  could  plead  accident  and 
insanity,  especially  the  latter,  and  get  off  without  trouble. 

Shechem,  or  Nablous,  is  chiefly  interesting  to-day  as  the  resi- 
dence of  the  Samaritans  ;  there  are  considerably  less  than  two 
hundred  of  them  and  they  live  now,  as  they  did  in  Christ's  time, 
and  long  before  it,  following  the  same  occupations,  obeying  the 

22 


358  A    STRANGE    PEOPLE, 

same  laws  and  worshipping  after  the  ancient  manner.  We  read 
in  the  New  Testament  that  "  the  Jews  have  no  deahngs  with  the 
Samaritans,"  and  the  statement  applies  at  this  day  and  hour  as  it 
did  when  these  words  were  written. 

Down  to  a  few  centuries  ago,  there  were  colonies  of  Samari- 
tans in  three  or  four  of  the  Oriental  cities,  but  they  have  all  dis- 
appeared except  this  one  at  Nablous.  They  date  from  the  As- 
syrian conquest  of  Israel  and  the  carrying  of  the  people  into  cap- 
tivity. They  came  from  the  East,  to  settle  in  the  deserted  cities, 
and  added  to  their  own  religion  some  features  of  Jewish  worship. 
Rejected  by  the  Jews,  they  determined  to  have  a  temple  of  their 
own,  and  they  erected  it  upon  Mount  Gerizim,  one  of  the  hills 
overlooking  Shechem.  They  go  there  now,  as  they  have  always 
done,  to  celebrate  the  Feast  of  the  Passover,  and  follow  the  mode 
prescribed  in  the  twelfth  Chapter  of  Exodus.  Six  lambs  are 
roasted  after  the  ancient  method  and  eaten  by  the  people,  and  no 
infidel  Christian,  Jew,  or  Moslem  is  allowed  to  touch  any  of  the 
meat  or  any  part  of  the  culinary  apparatus.  They  accept  the 
first  five  books  of  the  Bible  as  their  gospel,  but  reject  all  others; 
they  accept  Moses  as  the  only  law-giver,  believe  that  a  Messiah 
is  to  come,  believe  in  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  and  in  a  state 
of  future  rewards  and  punishments,  and  they  keep  all  the  feasts 
and  fasts  enjoined  in  the  Pentateuch.  They  also  keep  the  feast 
of  Purim,  on  the  ground  that  it  celebrates  the  journey  of  Moses 
to  Egypt  to  deliver  the  Israelites,  and  not  as  the  Jews  celebrate 
it  for  the  release  of  their  people  by  Queen  Esther. 

What  a  strange  people  !  The  only  remaining  adherents  of  a 
faith  that  was  once  wide  spread  through  Syria — a  link  binding  us 
to  the  mystic  past,  and  carrying  us  back  more  than  thirty  cen- 
turies of  time.  They  are  born,  they  live,  they  think,  they  wor- 
ship, they  die  as  their  ancestors  have  done  for  more  than  a  hun- 
dred generations.  To  them  the  present  is  a  dream,  the  past  the 
only  reality. 

They  have  a  synagogue,  and  by  dint  of  energy  and  "  back- 
sheesh," we  may  visit  it.  They  show  us  the  famous  Samaritan 
Codex,  the  copy  of  the  Pentateuch,  which  is  said  to  be  the  oldest 
MS,  copy  in  existence.  It  is  on  parchment,  about  fifteen  inches 
wide  and  twenty-five  yards  long,  and  is  much  defaced  and  injured 


"doubter's"  opinion  of  a  parchment.  361 

by  time  and  handling.  There  has  been  much  discussion  concern- 
ing this  parchment,  and  many  pages  have  been  written  to  prove  or 
disprove  its  antiquity.  The  Samaritans  claim  that  it  is  thirty-five 
hundred  years  old,  and  they  give  the  name  of  the  writer,  but  he 
is  not  there  now  to  swear  to  the  truth  of  the  statement.  As  Ser- 
geant Buzfuz  would  say,  "  his  is  in  itself  suspicious."  That  it 
is  very  ancient  there  is  no  doubt,  and  the  reader  may  take  his 
choice  as  to  date  of  manufacture.  The  "  Doubter "  says  that 
he  saw  in  the  parchment  the  watermark  "  Eagle  Mills" — Jones 
and  Smith,  encircling  a  flying  eagle  with  a  shield  in  his  claws. 
But  I  don't  believe  him. 

We  pass  Gibeah,  the  ancient  Geba,  and  next  come  to  Bethel, 
now  called  Beitin,  where  Jacob  lay  down,  as  you  see  the  Arabs 
lying  now,  with  the  earth  for  a  bed  and  a  stone  for  his  pillow,  and 
dreamed  that  he  saw  a  ladder  reaching  to  Heaven,  and  angels 
ascending  and  descending  upon  it.  Abraham  pitched  his  tent 
here,  and  here  was  buried  Deborah,  the  nurse  of  Rachel,  under 
an  oak  tree,  which  Jacob  had  chosen. 

We  pass  Ramah,  a  heap  of  ruins,  in  which  a  modern  village  is 
huddled.  Its  inhabitants  have  no  higher  object  than  the  ex- 
tortion of  "  backsheesh "  from  travellers,  and  they  keep  up  a 
steady  din  of  supplications  as  long  as  we  are  in  their  vicinity.  We 
pass  out  of  the  fertile  country  and  come  again  among  the  lime- 
stone hills,  the  eternal  hills  "  round  about  Jerusalem  "  We  are 
looking  anxiously  for  the  Holy  City,  and  finally,  as  the  sun  is 
sinking  and  the  approaching  night  spreads  the  shadows  over  the 
glens  and  valleys,  we  climb  the  crest  of  Scopus  and  look  away 
toward  a  rounded  mountain,  crowned  with  a  monastery. 

This  is  the  Mount  of  Olives  ;  nearer  to  us,  and  at  its  feet  lies 
a  city  with  grey  walls  and  with  domes  and  minarets  rising  above 
them.  Do  we  need  to  be  told  that  we  are  gazing  upon  Jerusa- 
lem } 

We  halt  a  moment  at  the  Damascus  gate.  From  one  of  the 
Arabs  that  gather  about  us,  let  us  borrow  the  Enchanted  Carpet, 
which  may  have  belonged  to  his  ancestor,  celebrated  in  the 
Arabian  Nights.  Seating  ourselves  upon  it,  we  utter  a  wish  to 
return  to  Damascus,  and  behold,  in  an  instant  we  are  once  more 
in  the  court-yard  of  Dimitri's  hotel. 


CHAPTER     XXVIII. 


FROM  DAMASCUS  TO  JAFFA.— INCIDENTS  OF  THE  TRIP. 

Once  More  in  Damascus — Taking  the  "  Short  Route  " — Starting  for  Beyrout — The 
Fountains  of  Damascus — Rain-Storm  in  the  Anti-Lebanon — Stora  and  its  Mode* 
Hotel — Poetical  Fancies — A  Compliment  to  Mine  Host — The  "Doubter"  as  a 
Rhymist — Climbing  Mount  Lebanon — Tropic  Suns  and  Arctic  Snows — View  from 
the  Summit — A  Vision  of  Fairy-Land — Coming  Down  on  the  Double-Quick — In 
Sight  of  the  Mediterranean — Taking  Ship  for  Jaffa — Sidon  to  a  Modern  Tourist 
— Tyre — Jaffa — A  Dangerous  Roadstead. 

WE  have  done  with  Damascus  and  the  country  beyond  it ; 
we  have  studied  the  road  to  Palmyra  and  Bagdad,  and  the 
overland  route  to  Jerusalem  ;  we  have  seen  the  bazaars,  the 
fountains,  the  slave  market,  the  mosques  and  the  churches,  and 
we  have  looked  from  the  Salahiyeh  hills  when  the  setting  sun 
was  gilding  the  domes  and  towers  of  the  city.  Our  carriage  is 
waiting  to  bear  us  away  to  Beyrout,  where  we  will  "  take  ship  for 
Jaffa,"  as  did  the  men  of  Solomon  many  centuries  ago. 

We  started  out  of  Damascus  in  a  pouring  rain,  but  we  didn't 
think  it  would  be  much  of  a  shower,  and  kept  on.  Just  outside, 
we  crossed  a  bridge  over  the  Abana,  or  rather  over  one  of  its 
seven  branches,  and  then  followed  the  stream  upward  for  a  few 
miles.  The  Abana  formerly  flowed  in  a  single  stream;  the 
founders  of  Damascus  determined  to  utilize  it  for  beautifying  the 
city,  and  well  did  they  perform  their  work.  Here  and  there,  as 
you  ascend  the  stream,  you  see  dams  thrown  across  to  direct  first 
one  portion  and  then  another,  and  from  these  dams  there  are 
artificial  canals,  sometimes  tunneled  through  the  rock,  and  all 

(362) 


HOW    TO    KEEP    A    HOTEL.  363 

leading  toward  the  cluster  of  domes,  and  minarets,  and  roofs  that 
mark  the  locality  of  the  city. 

Through  all  parts  of  Damascus  the  Abana  is  carried  in  divi- 
sions and  subdivisions,  now  in  open  channels  and  now  in  aque- 
ducts concealed  beneath  the  street.  Fountains  foam  and  bubble 
at  every  street  corner  and  sparkle  in  every  dwelling  ;  water,  clear, 
bright,  and  beautiful,  is  everywhere,  and  man  or  beast  has  no 
need  to  thirst. 

It  is  this  abundance  of  water  that  has  created  much  of  the 
fame  of  Damascus  and  made  it  attractive  in  the  eyes  of  travellers. 
Beyond  Damascus  is  the  desert,  without  water  or  verdure  ;  all 
around,  east,  west,  north,  and  south,  the  country  is  rugged,  and 
more  or  less  barren. 

The  traveller  from  Bagdad,  from  Mecca,  from  Aleppo,  and 
from  other  points,  has  wandered  over  treeless  wastes,  where  rock 
and  sand  are  the  only  objects  to  greet  his  eye,  and  the  only  water 
to  quench  his  thirst  is  the  hot  and  brackish  liquid  carried  in  goat 
skins  at  his  saddle  bow.  After  long  and  weary  days  he  arrives 
at  Damascus,  embowered  in  gardens,  and  at  every  step  through 
her  streets  he  sees  a  fountain.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  he  con- 
siders Damascus  as  second  only  to  Paradise  ? 

The  rain  didn't  stop,  as  we  had  expected.  It  kept  coming 
steadily  during  the  six  hours— that  seemed  long  enough  for 
sixty — between  Damascus  and  Stora. 

We  warmed  and  dried  ourselves  as  best  we  could  before  going 
to  bed,  but  there  was  a  good  deal  of  moisture  in  our  clothes 
when  we  got  up  in  the  morning.  We  didn't  feel  particularly  gay, 
especially  as  the  morning  was  cold  and  the  rain  was  continuing, 
but  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  to  push  on.  The  steamer  was 
due  at  Beyrout  that  day,  and  would  leave  in  the  evening,  and  if 
we  missed  her  we  should  be  stuck  there  for  ten  days. 

We  wrote  in  the  visitors'  book  some  complimentary  things 
about  the  hotel  at  Stora  before  we  went  to  bed  in  the  evening. 
One  was  a  macaronic  verse,  the  first  line  English,  the  second 
French,  the  third  German,  and  the  fourth  Spanish.  This  was 
the  combined  effort  of  the  party  ;  then  the  Judge  and  I  broke 
into  verse  as  follows  : 

"  At  Stora  we,  half  dozen  tourists, 
Have  fared  unexpectedly  well, 


364  DOGGEREL  BY  THE  "  DOUBTER. 

For  hostess  and  host,  we,  as  jurists. 
Declare  they  can  keep  a  hotel." 

Then  the  "  Doubter,"  remembering  the  hardships  of  his  ride 
to  and  from  Baalbek,  broke  out  with  a  nursery  rhyme  Uke  this  : 

"  We  went  up  from  Baalbek  to  Stora, 
And,  riding,  grew  sorer  and  sorer. 
This  rough  land  of  the  Prophet, 
If  I  ever  get  off  it, 
Sure,  I'll  not  come  again,  begorra !" 

We  had  suspected  that  the  "  Doubter"  was  of  Hibernian 
origin,  and  now  we  knew  it.  He  owned  up  and  said  that  his  an- 
cestors were  among  the  Kings  of  Tipperary.  But  his  poetic 
production  did  not  find  a  place  in  the  book,  for  the  reason  that  it 
was  not  complimentary  to  the  country,  and  did  not  reflect  the 
opinions  of  the  rest  of  the  party. 

Up  we  went  on  the  eastern  slope  of  Mount  Lebanon,  the  air 
growing  colder,  and  the  clouds  enveloping  us  more  and  more 
densely  as  we  ascended.  I  sat  on  the  box  and  shivered,  and 
vowed  not  to  be  caught  again  in  such  a  scrape.  By-and-by  we  were 
at  the  summit.  There  was  an  inch  or  so  of  snow  on  the  road, 
and  more  on  the  rocks,  and  the  wind  was  sharp  enough  to  shave 
with.  I  was  chattering  like  a  magpie,  and  would  have  given 
something  for  a  cup  of  hot  tea,  or  something  that  would  warm 
me.  Kalil  pointed  to  the  sea,  which  just  then  appeared  below 
us  through  a  rift  in  the  clouds,  and  its  reflection  in  the  warm  sun- 
light was  something  pleasing  to  look  upon. 

It  was  a  long  way  down — fifty-six  hundred  feet — but  we  were 
good  for  it.  Kalil  turned  down  the  brake  a  little,  not  enough  to 
prevent  the  turning  of  the  wheels,  and  not  enough  to  keep  back  the 
horses,  who  went  on  at  full  speed.  Now  the  air  grew  warmer, 
now  the  clouds  broke  away  and  fled  over  the  mountain  top,  now 
the  snow  grew  thinner  and  soon  disappeared,  now  we  could  see 
Beyrout  hovering  like  a  bird  over  the  land  that  skirts  the  bay,  and 
looking  bright  and  genial  in  the  warm  sunlight.  The  Mediter- 
ranean rippled  and  sparkled  in  the  sunlight ;  far  out  on  the  water 
we  could  see  stipples  of  white  sails,  and  here  and  there  we  could 
discover  the  long,  dark  streaks  on  the  horizon  that  marked  the 
path  of  a  steamer.     The  waves  broke  over  the  rocky  beach  with 


BUYING  THE  HOLY  LAND,  36/ 

an  uneven  surge,  and  a  silver  thread  widening  as  it  advanced  its 
winding  way  among  the  rocks  showed  us  where  lay  the  river  that 
reaches  the  sea  just  north  of  the  city. 

Winter  was  left  behind  as  we  descended  the  mountain  at  a 
break-neck  pace  ;  spring  opened  upon  us,  and  soon  the  spring 
was  succeeded  by  the  warmth  of  summer.  We  were  once  more 
among  the  palm  trees  ;  oranges  and  citrons  twinkled  on  the 
branches  that  bore  them,  and  reflected  back  the  golden  light  of  a 
Syrian  sun.  The  dim  lines  on  the  water  developed  into  waves  ; 
the  ships,  at  first  faintly  outlined,  revealed  all  the  details  of  spars 
and  rigging,  and  the  confused  mass  clinging  to  the  land  and 
marking  the  locality  of  Beyrout  developed  into  the  many  colored 
domes,  and  towers,  and  roofs  of  an  Oriental  city ;  and  as  we 
drew  rein  at  the  door  of  the  hotel,  close  to  the  water's  edge,  we 
forgot  our  troubles,  and  breathed  an  atmosphere  warm  and  in- 
vigorating as  September. 

It  was  rather  rough  when  we  went  on  board  the  steamer 
which  was  to  take  us  to  Jaffa,  and  the  wind  increased  during 
the  night,  so  that  by  morning  it  was  a  respectable  gale.  The 
steamer  was  to  start  at  daybreak,  and  stop  at  Caifa,  half  way 
to  Jaffa,  but  the  wind  was  so  high  that  she  didn't  go.  She 
started  once,  but  the  sea  was  so  rough  that  the  captain  hesi- 
tated and  came  to  anchor  again.  We  contemplated  Beyrout 
that  day  and  part  of  the  next,  and  we  had  a  similar  contempla- 
tion of  Caifa.  The  agent  came  out  in  a  boat,  and  said  he  could 
not  get  a  single  lighter  to  venture  out,  as  there  was  a  very  heavy 
sea  breaking  on  the  shore.  So  without  landing  or  receiving  any 
freight,  we  departed  ;  some  passengers  went  ashore,  among  them 
several  who  had  tickets  for  Jaffa,  but  were  fearful  that  they 
would  not  be  able  to  land  there.  Among  the  deck  passengers 
were  several  Jews  who  were  coming  to  Palestine  to  settle  and 
make  their  fortunes.  The  story  that  the  Rothschilds  had  bought 
Palestine  from  Turkey,  or  rather  had  taken  it,  as  a  collateral  for 
a  loan  which  Turkey  could  not  pay,  was  current  among  them. 

We  passed  between  Beyrout  and  Caifa,  the  port  of  Saida,  the 
ancient  Sidon,  which  disputed  with  Tyre  the  mastery  of  the 
seas.  It  was  once  a  great  city  ;  now  it  is  a  dirty,  ill-kept  town, 
with  a  population  of  not  more  than  eight  or  nine  thousand,  and 


368 


DESOLATION    INCARNATE. 


with  a  commerce  so  insignificant  that  it  docs  not  pay  the  steam- 
ers to  call  there.  Where  it  formerly  boasted  an  extensive  fleet, 
it  has  not  now  a  single  vessel  larger  than  a  fishing  boat ! 

We  pass  in  front  of  Tyre,  one  of  the  oldest,  as  it  was  once 
one  of  the  most  powerful  cities  of  the  East.  It  has  been  many 
times  destroyed  and  rebuilt,  and  a  careful  investigator  can  find 


.•-•,-a;«;. 


the  remains  of  at  least  a  dozen  different  cities  either  in  its  ruins 
or  in  the  historic  accounts.  At  present  there  are  less  than  four 
thousand  inhabitants,  Christian  and  Moslem,  in  the  proportion 
of  half  and  half. 

Jaffa  has  always  borne  a  bad  reputation  on  the  score  of  safety, 
as  it  has  no  port  where  ships  can  lie,  and  is  not  even  protected 
by  projecting  headlands      Its  harbor  is  an  open  roadstead,  and  if 


A    DANGEROUS    KOADSTEAD.  369 

the  wind  blows  from  the  south  or  west,  or  any  point  of  compass 
between  them,  boats  cannot  venture  out  on  account  of  the  heavy- 
surf.  In  summer  the  weather  is  generally  favorable,  but  not  al- 
ways so,  while  in  winter  it  is  about  an  even  wager  for  or  against 
communication  between  ship  and  shore.  Our  captain  said  that 
in  some  winters  he  had  been  able  to  land  at  Jaffa  every  trip,  and 
in  other  winters  he  could  not  land  at  all.  I  heard  of  one  man 
who  wanted  to  go  to  Jerusalem,  and  had  gone  past  Jaffa  five 
times  unable  to  land  there.  And  I  heard  a  dragoman  say  that 
he  had  gone  to  Jaffa  nine  times,  and  never  failed  to  land  each 
time.     You  see  the  difference  between  good  and  ill  luck. 

If  we  had  arrived  on  any  of  the  previous  eight  days,  we 
would  have  been  unfortunate ;  two  steamers  had  gone  past  in 
that  time,  one  of  them  with  three  hundred  pilgrims  for  Jerusa- 
lem, which  were  carried  to  Port  Said,  and  would  be  brought 
back  from  there.  But  the  morning  we  sighted  Jaffa  the  weather 
was  propitious,  and  as  we  cast  anchor  the  ship  was  soon  sur- 
rounded by  boats  ready  to  take  the  passengers  ashore.  Wq  lost 
no  time,  as  we  were  fearful  a  wind  might  arise  and  detain  us,  and 
so  we  closed  our  bargain  for  transportation  to  land  at  the  usual 
rate  of  one  franc  for  each  person,  including  our  baggage. 


CHAPTER    XXIX. 


ENGAGING  A  DRAGOMAN.— OUR   START  FOR  JERUSALEM. 

Views  of  Jaffa — A  queer-looking  City — The  Oldest  Inhabited  Town  in  the  World — 
The  Massacre  of  Jaffa — A  Stain  upon  the  Memory  of  Napoleon— A  Contract 
with  a  Dragoman — A  close  margin — The  value  of  Credentials — An  honest  Arab — 
Getting  into  Saddle — An  American  Colony — Their  German  Successors — The 
Fruits  of  the  Country — Generous  conduct  of  the  "  Doubter  " — On  the  road  to 
Jerusalem — A  night  at  Ramleh — In  a  Russian  Convent — The  Gauntlet  of  Beg- 
gars— The  Pest  of  the  Road— Begging  as  a  Fine  Art — The  "  Gate  of  the  Glen" — 
Among  the  Mountain  Passes — In  sight  of  the  Holy  City. 

JAFFA  presents  a  curiously  terraced  appearance,  when  seen 
from  the  water,  and  its  flat  roofs  and  low  arches  show  its 
Syrian  character.  There  is  a  semi-circle  of  rough  rocks  that 
form  a  sort  of  harbor  for  small  boats,  and  it  requires  good  steer- 
ing to  carry  a  boat  through  the  entrance,  only  ten  feet  wide, 
without  accident.  The  surf  breaks  violently  when  the  wind  is 
high,  and  makes  a  landing  or  embarkation  dangerous.  The 
town  looks  more  beautiful  a  mile  or  two  away  than  when  close 
at  hand. 

The  landing  place  was  dirty,  and  crowded  with  all  sorts  of  un- 
clean Arabs,  and  the  streets  were  crooked,  narrow,  and  so  full  of 
mud  and  dirt  as  to  make  walking  a  serious  matter.  Tradition- 
ally, Jaffa  is  the  oldest  city  in  the  world  ;  it  is  said  to  have 
existed  before  the  flood,  and  it  is  likewise  recorded  as  very  old 
by  history.  It  was  one  of  the  towns  allotted  to  the  tribe  of  Dan, 
and  is  mentioned  as  the  landing-place  of  the  rafts  of  cedar  and 
pine  from  Lebanon  for  the  construction  of  Solomon's  temple. 

It  was  an  important  place  at  the  time  of  the  Crusades,  but 
gradually  dwindled  in  commercial  and  other  consequence.     Na- 

(370) 


A    MODEL    DRAGOMAN.  373 

poleon  caused  it  to  be  talked  about  at  the  beginning  of  the  pres- 
ent century,  by  his  massacre  of  the  garrison  of  four  thousand 
men,  who  had  surrendered  on  condition  that  their  Hves  should 
be  spared. 

We  proceeded  with  our  baggage  to  the  German  hotel,  followed 
by  a  bodyguard  of  dragomen  and  guides  similar  to  those  that 
had  escorted  us  at  Beyrout,  and  animated  with  the  same  noble 
ambition  to  make  contracts  that  should  transfer  money  from  our 
pockets  to  theirs.  As  soon  as  we  were  at  the  hotel  we  held  an 
audience  of  dragomen,  and  finally  selected  one  that  seemed  to 
answer  our  purpose.  As  a  matter  of  precaution,  we  went  with 
him  to  the  German  Consul — the  American  Consul  was  out  of 
town — and  bidding  him  wait  at  the  door,  we  consulted  the  man 
of  authority.  He  pronounced  the  dragoman  good,  and  we  closed 
with  him,  on  the  Consul's  recommendation.  He  was  to  take  us 
on  a  nine  days'  trip  to  Jerusalem,  Bethlehem,  Mar  Saba,  the 
Dead  Sea,  Jordan,  Jericho,  and  Ramleh,  at  an  expense  of  twenty 
francs  for  each  person  per  day. 

He  was  to  provide  all  requisites  for  the  journey  ;  three  double 
tents — one  for  each  two  persons — servants,  beds,  food,  English 
saddles,  side  saddle  for  the  lady,  saddle  and  pack  horses,  and  to 
pay  all  hotel  and  convent  expenses,  and  supply  local  guides  in 
Jerusalem  ;  he  was  to  provide  sufficient  escort  when  needed, 
and  to  pay  all  fees  and  "  backsheesh "  of  every  kind,  except 
at  the  Mosque  of  Omar.  The  party  was  to  be  at  liberty  to 
change  the  route,  and  to  stop  whenever  it  chose.  The  horses 
were  to  be  sound,  strong,  kind,  and  active,  and  if  any  of  them 
were  disabled,  the  dragoman  was  to  provide  suitable  substitutes 
without  extra  charge.  In  case  of  dispute,  the  matter  could  be 
referred  to  the  German  or  American  Consul  at  Jaffa  or  Jeru- 
salem. 

While  on  the  road,  the  food  should  consist  of  tea  or  coffee  in 
the  morning,  with  eggs,  bread,  and  butter  ;  luncheon  at  noon, 
of  chicken  or  cold  meat,  eggs,  bread,  cheese,  and  dessert  ;  and 
dinner  as  good  as  the  hotel  dinner.  In  Jerusalem  the  party 
could  have  choice  of  the  Mediterranean  and  Damascus  hotels. 

Ten  napoleons  were  to  be  paid  at  starting,  and  the  remainder, 
half  in  Jerusalem  and  half  in  Jaffa,  on  our  return. 


374 


ALI  SOLOMON, THE  DRAGOMAN. 


All  Solomon  was  the  name  of  our  dragoman,  and  I  will  do  him 
the  credit  to  say  that  we  were  entirely  satisfied  with  him.  He 
kept  his  contract  more  faithfully  than  we  expected  he  would,  and 
in  some  points  exceeded  its  terms.  I  don't  recommend  him  to 
anybody  else,  for  fear  he  may  have  suffered  a  change  of  heart, 
and  become  a  rascal  ;  men  are  very  uncertain  in  this  respect. 

I  once  had  a  servant  whom  I 
supposed  to  be  honest  enough  to 
be  a  model  for  the  rising  genera- 
tion. He  left  my  employ  to  seek 
fortune  and  turn  an  honest  penny 
elsewhere,  and  I  gave  him  a 
'character'  which  a  student  of 
theology  might  envy.  On  the 
strength  of  my  recommendation, 
he  obtained  a  situation  with  a 
gentleman,  whose  milk  of  human 
kindness  had  not  been  curdled 
by  experience.  John  was  trusted 
with  things  in  general,  and  re- 
quited the  confidence  by  stealing 
a  hundred  dollars,  and  then  steal- 
ing away.  And  no  man,  so  far  as 
I  have  heard,  knoweth,  to  this  day, 
the  place  of  his  sojourn. 

Since  then,  I  have  been  cau- 
tious about  commendations,  and, 
for  this  reason,  I  will  only  say  of 
Ali,  that  we  were  entirely  satisfied 
with  him,  and  believed  him  honest 
and  faithful.  If  he  robbed  his 
OUR  DRAGOMAN,  ALI  SOLOMON.  ncxt  customcrs  of  the  filling  of 
their  back  teeth,  it  is  no  affair  of  ours. 

We  selected  horses  from  a  large  number,  and  very  good  horses 
they  were.  About  2  o'clock  we  rode  out  of  the  German  colony 
of  Jaffa,  which  has  bought  the  property  formerly  held  by  the 
American  colony  from  Maine.  The  Germans  are  prospering, 
and  promise  well  for  the  future.     I  was  told  that  the  Americans 


ONE    OF    THE    "DOUBTEr's"    STRONG    POINTS.  375 

might  have  prospered,  if  their  affairs  had  been  well  managed,  but 
that  their  leader  was  about  the  worst  head  that  could  have  been 
chosen.  Only  four,  I  believe,  of  the  American  colonists  remain 
there,  three  women  and  one  man.  One  woman  is  in  a  state  of 
poverty,  but  I  was  told  that  the  rest  were  making  a  good  living. 
The  Germans  havea  good  manager  at  their  head,  and  all  of  them 
are  industrious.  They  have  a  second  village  about  two  miles 
away  from  the  one  originally  founded  by  the  Americans. 

Through  a  street  paved  with  mud  and  filth,  and  bordered  by 
tents  and  booths,  where  oranges  and  other  things  edible — in 
theory  or  in  practice — were  exposed  for  sale,  we  moved  toward 
the  interior  and  away  from  the  sea.  Orange  groves  were  on 
every  side,  and  we  appreciated  the  reputation  of  Jaffa  for  this 
excellent  fruit. 

Even  the  "Doubter"  was  convinced  of  the  excellence  of  the 
oranges,  as  he  filled  his  pockets  without  expense,  and  became 
liberal  enough  to  bestow  an  orange  upon  a  small  boy  who  held 
his  horse  and  wanted  a  slight  "  backsheesh"  in  return.  "I  don't 
believe  money  is  good  for  you,"  he  said  to  the  boy  ;  "  you  had 
better  take  an  orange."  The  boy  could  have  had  all  of  this  sort 
of  thing  that  he  wanted,  and  indicated  an  objection  to  receiving 
payment  in  fruit,  but  his  objections  were  of  no  avail. 

One  of  the  "  Doubter's  "  strong  points  was  in  never  paying  at 
all  for  small  services,  or  in  paying  in  something  that  cost  him 
nothing.  His  sympathy  was  roused  for  a  poor  woman  in  Jaffa, 
and  as  we  finished  dinner  he  took  a  large  orange  from  the  table 
and  said :  "  I  would  like  to  give  this  to  that  poor  woman  over 
the  way."  We  applauded  his  burst  of  generosity  in  giving  away 
what  belonged  to  the  hotel,  and  didn't  let  him  hear  the  last  of  it 
for  a  day  or  two. 

Outside  of  Jaffa,  the  road  goes  over  a  flat  or  undulating  coun- 
try, evidently  quite  fertile,  excepting  at  intervals,  where  it  is  too 
sandy  for  cultivation.  For  saddle  horses  the  road  is  excellent ;  it 
is  intended  for  a  carriage  road,  but  has  never  been  finished, 
though  carriages  do  manage  to  get  over  it  now  and  then,  all  the 
way  to  Jerusalem.  The  story  goes,  that  when  the  Sultan  vis- 
ited Paris  in  1867,  the  Emperor  told  him  that  Eugenie  wished  to 
visit  Jerusalem,   but  was  unable  to  ride   there   on   horseback. 


376  PROFESSIONAL    BEGGARS. 

"  There  shall  be  a  good  carriage  road  there  in  a  year,"  said  the 
Sultan,  and  he  at  once  gave  orders  for  its  construction.  But 
somehow  it  still  remains  in  an  unfinished  condition,  and  the 
promise  to  complete  it  within  a  year  is  like  many  other  promises 
of  the  Turkish  ruler. 

The  Russians  have  a  convent  at  Ramleh,  for  the  accommoda- 
tion of  Russian  pilgrims  to  Jerusalem,  and  there  is  also  a  Latin 
convent  there,  under  the  management  of  French  and  Italian 
monks.  The  Latin  establishment  is  really  a  convent,  or  rather 
a  monastery,  but  the  Russian  one  is  more  like  a  hotel,  as  it  is 
kept  by  a  Russian  family,  whereas  the  Latin  convent  is  really 

in  the 
hands  of 
holy  men, 
clad  in 
hood  and 
cowl.  Our 
d  r  ago  - 
man  rode 
ahead  and 


' BACKSHEESH ! " 


arranged  that  we  should  stop  at 
the  Russian  convent,  and  sent  a 
boy  out  to  meet  and  guide  us 
into  the  place. 

Along  the  road  side,  as  we  en- 
tered, there  were  a  lot  of  beggars 
— twenty  or  more — drawn  up,  or 
rather  squatted  in  line  where  they 
could  assail  us.  Some  were  blind,  some  had  lost  their  hands 
or  their  fingers,  and  each  of  them  held  up  his  mutilated  stumps 
to  attract  attention.  We  were  told  some  of  them  were  lepers, 
but  that  the  majority  had  been  mutilated  either  by  themselves  or 
their  parents  in  order  to  insure  their  success  as  beggars.  One  of 
our  party  gave  a  small  coin  to  the  worst  looking  of  the  mendi- 
cants, and  immediately  the  whole  crowd  set  in  pursuit. 

If  you  give  a  gratuity  in  Syria,  you  are  at  once  pursued  by  all 
the  beggars  in  sight,  including  the  one  to  whom  you  have  made 
a  donation,  and  nothing  short  of  a  blow  with  a  cudgel  will  shake 


A    SCHEME    FOR    GETTING    RID    OF    BEGGARS.  379 

them  off.  This  systematic  begging  is  apt  to  harden  one's  heart, 
especially  when  you  find  it  impossible  to  satisfy  the  demands  of 
an  applicant.  The  government  would  do  a  charitable  work  if  it 
would  assemble  the  beggars  of  Ramleh  into  a  close  room  and  as- 
phyxiate them  over  a  charcoal  fire.  They  have  been  suppressed 
two  or  three  times,  but  are  sure  to  spring  up  again. 

We  were  up  early,  and  for  three  hours  had  a  road  ver}-  much 
like  that  of  the  day  before.  This  ride  brought  us  to  the  Bab-el- 
Wady,  or  Gate  of  the  Glen,  where  there  is  a  sort  of  hotel  which 
furnishes  everything  for  the  traveller,  except  food,  drink,  and  lodg- 
ing, and  there  is  a  room  where  you  can  sit  at  a  rickety  table  in  a 
rickety  chair,  and  eat  the  provisions  you  have  brought  along. 

From  this  so-called  hotel  we  moved  up  a  glen  or  valley  with 
the  rocks  on  both  sides  of  us,  and  the  road  making  a  steady  as- 
cent. We  were  now  among  the  rugged  mountains  that  extend 
to  and  beyond  Jerusalem,  a  dreary  and  almost  sterile  waste,  whose 
every  aspect  is  forbidding. 

I  know  of  no  mountain  ride  more  dreary  than  that  from  Bab- 
el-Wady  to  Jerusalem.  In  nearly  all  other  mountain  chains  I 
have  ever  seen,  you  have  frequent  glimpses  of  scenery  that  would 
partly  reward  for  your  toil,  but  here  there  is  nothing  of  the  kind. 
It  is  a  succession  of  rough  and  rounded  summits,  too  rocky  for 
cultivation,  and  not  broken  enough  to  be  picturesque.  A  few 
villages  nestle  in  the  glens,  and  there  are  occasional  patches  of 
olive  trees,  but  the  general  aspect  is  one  of  unredeemed  sterility. 

The  road  from  Jaffa  to  Jerusalem  is  about  thirty-six  miles  in 
length :  travellers  generally  divide  it  by  going  to  Ramleh — nine 
miles — the  first  day,  and  to  Jerusalem  the  next.  The  ordinary 
time  for  a  party  unused  to  travel  is  twelve  hours  ;  going  up  we 
made  it  in  ten  hours,  and  coming  back  we  did  it  in  seven  and  a 
half,  which  was  very  fair  speed. 

We  wound  along  the  mountain  road,  and  four  hours  after  leav- 
ing Bab-el-Wady,  the  foremost  of  our  cortege  swung  his  hat  from 
one  of  the  rounded  summits.  "  Jerusalem,"  said  the  dragoman, 
and  at  the  word  we  pressed  forward. 

There  lay  the  Holy  City,  as  it  lay  when  the  Crusaders  came 
hither  to  wrest  it  from  the  hands  of  the  Moslem,  and  as  it  has 
greeted  the  eyes  of  many  a  pious  pilgrim  in  more  modern  days. 


38o 


ARRIVAL    AT   JERUSALEM. 


Its  towers  and  walls  rose  before  us,  while  around  were  the  ever- 
lasting hills  of  Israel.  Tasso's  lines  describing  the  first  view  of 
the  city  by  the  Crusaders  came  involuntarily  to  my  mind. 

Winged  is  each  heart,  and  winged  every  heel, 

They  fly,  yet  notice  scarce  how  fast  they  fly, 

But  by  the  time  the  dewless  meads  reveal 

The  golden  sun  ascended  in  the  sky, 

Lo  !  towered  Jerusalem  salutes  the  eye. 

A  thousand  pointing  fingers  tell  the  tale, 

"  Jerusalem !"  a  thousand  voices  cry ; 

"All  hail,  Jerusalem  !"  hill,  down,  and  dale 

Catch  the  glad  sound,  and  shout,  "  Jerusalem,  all  hail." 

The  towered  walls  recalled  the  pictures  of  Jerusalem,  with 
which  the  whole  world  is  famihar,  and  we  seemed  to  be  entering 


REMAINS  OF  AN   ANCIENT  ARCH,   SHOWING  A   PORTION   OF  THE  HARAM  WALL. 

a  city  that  we  had  seen  before.  The  Turkish  soldiers  at  the  gate 
made  no  opposition  to  our  entrance.  Formerly  strangers  were 
kept  waiting  at  the  gate  until  their  passports  had  been  sent  to  the 
police  for  examination,  and  sometimes  the  detentioji  lasted  two  or 
three  hours.  A  few  steps  inside  the  gate  brought  us  to  the  door 
of  the  Mediterranean  Hotel,  where  we  dismounted  and  made  our- 
selves at  home. 


CHAPTER     XXX. 

THE   LIONS   OF  JERUSALEM.— THE  TEMPLE,   THE   SEPULCHRE, 
AND   THE    HOLY   OF   HOLIES. 

First  Sights  in  Jerusilem— Appearance  of  the  streets— What  the  "Doubter"  thought 
—A  chancre  of  opinion— The  Tower  of  David— The  Street  of  David— Church  of 
the  Holy  Sepulchre— Scenes  around  it— Palace  of  the  Knights  of  St.  John— Via 
Dolorosa— Damascus  Gate— Walls  of  the  Holy  City— Vi.-<iiing  the  Temple— The 
HaYam  and  Mosque  of  Omar — Visiting  the  Substructions — A  triple  venera-.ion — 
Place  of  Wailing — The  Quarries — Remains  of  an  Ancient  Bridge. 

AS  soon  as  we  were  fair- 
ly in  Jerusalem  and 
had  brushed  up  a  little,  we 
started  out  to  see  some  of 
the  many  sights  that  the 
city  contains. 

Apart  from  its  histori- 
^^^^^__  cal   interest  and  the  pic- 
^''^^^^  turesque  appearance  of  its 
7r^^-^'  walls,  towers,  and  domes, 
''^'■^^^i-^  Jerusalem   is  the  reverse 
of   pleasing.       Its    streets 
are   narrow   and    badly 
paved,   and    no  effort   is 
made  to  keep  them  clean. 
Some  of  the  narrow  ones 
are  particularly  filihy,  and 
one  must  have  good  boots 
A  sTKKEi  IN  JERUSALEM.  aud   bc  carcful   about  his 

steps  to  walk  safely  along  these  ways.     I   laughed  inwardly  as 
23  (381) 


382 


THE    STREETS    OF   JERUSALEM. 


the  "  Doubter "  hesitated  at  some  of  the  corners  and  showed  a 
determination  to  turn  back,  or  rather  an  uncertainty  about  going 
forward. 

When  we  descended  the  Danube,  we  stopped  a  short  time  at 
Belgrade,  the  capital  of  Servia,  and  standing  on  the  frontier  be- 


ARCHED    STREET  AND    FUUNTAIN,   JERUSALEM. 

tween  the  Occident  and  the  Orient.  The  pavement  there  was 
rougher  than  that  of  European  cities,  and  the  "  Doubter"  doubted 
if  there  was  anything  worse  in  the  world. 

"  Let  us  hurry  up,"  said  he,  "  and  get  to  Constantinople  or  Je- 
rusalem where  the  streets  are  better." 


PRINCIPAL  STREET  OF  JERUSAI.l.M 


THE    "  doubter"    and   JERUSALEM    MUD.  385 

"  Why,  my  dear  '  Doubter,'  "  said  I,  "  these  are  far  better  than 
the  streets  in  those  cities.  They  have  worse  pavements  and 
deeper  mud." 

"  I  know  better,"  was  his  rejoinder,  and  that  closed  the  argu- 
ment. I  said  nothing  till  I  had  him  climbing  the  wide  street 
that  leads  from  Top-Hane  to  the  Hotel  de  Byzance  in  Constan- 
tinople, and  there  I  gave  him  a  little  prod  about  Belgrade.  He 
got  out  of  it  by  saying  that  he  knew  Jerusalem  was  much  better. 

Naturally,  I  was  pleased  when  I  managed  to  get  him  between 
two  mountains  of  mud,  or  something  of  the  sort,  in  a  narrow 
street  in  Jerusalem,  and  just  as  he  was  extricating  himself,  I 
asked  about  Belgrade. 

He  made  no  reply  that  I  heard,  but  I  saw  his  lips  moving  and 
his  mental  agitation  was  so  great  that  he  slipped  and  fell  where 
the  mud  was  worst.  He  was  not  presentable  in  polite  society 
after  that,  but  rather  looked  as  though  he  had  been  hired  out  by 
the  day  as  a  friction  roller  for  smoothing  a  freshly  flowed  swamp. 

From  the  front  of  the  hctel,  one  can  see  the  Tower  of  David, 
the  structure  which  King  David  erected  upon  Mount  Zion,  ac- 
cording to  Biblical  history. 

From  the  Jaffa  gate,  also  called  the  Hebron,  and  the  Mediter- 
ranean gate,  runs  the  street  of  David,  descending  the  hill  and 
subsequently  ascending  another  to  Mount  Moriah  Our  first 
walk  was  down  the  street  of  David  to  the  first  turning  to  the  left. 

This  took  us  into  Christ  street,  and  a  walk  of  three  or  four 
minutes  there  brought  us,  by  a  single  turning,  into  the  space  in 
front  of  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre. 

This  space  was  full  of  beggars,  and  of  people  selling  various 
sorts  of  ornaments  and  relics.  Some  had  rosaries  made  of  various 
kinds  of  wood,  generally  of  the  olive  tree  or  the  seeds  of  the  olive  ; 
some  had  crosses  and  holy  pictures  cut  in  mother  of  pearl ;  and 
others  had  old  coins  or  stone  ornaments  made  of  pieces  of  the 
Temple  of  Jerusalem.  The  traders  and  beggars  were  very  per- 
sistent, and  one  could  not  stand  a  minute  in  contemplation  of  the 
building  without  being  annoyed  by  the  one  class  or  the  other. 
More  than  one  of  us  wished  that  a  scourge  could  be  set  in  motion 
to  drive  away  these  pests  from  the  exterior  of  a  building,  which  is 
regarded  with  special  interest  by  all  Christian  people. 


386 


WHERE    CHRIST    RESTED    HIS    CROSS. 


We  could  not  enter  the  church  at  that  hour,  and  so  we  con- 
tented ourselves  with  a  visit  to  the  hospital  of  the  Knights  of  St. 
John,  or  rather  to  its  ruins.  We  walked  along  the  Via  Dolorosa 
and  were  shown  the  supposed  spot  where  Christ  rested  his  cross, 
then  we  went  along  the  street  of  the  Gate  of  the  Column  and  the 
street  of  the  Palace,  to  the  Damascus  Gate.  Then,  as  it  was  ap- 
proaching sunset,  we  returned  to  the  hotel  and  had  a  pleasant 


THE   GOLDEN    GATE,  JERUSALEM. 

conversation  with  Dr.  De  Hass,  our  newly  appointed  Consul  to 
Jerusalem. 

On  our  way  back  to  the  hotel  we  stopped  in  two  or  three  of 
the  many  shops  where  olive  wood  is  wrought  into  various  inter- 
esting forms  for  strangers  to  buy  and  carry  away.  It  seemed  as 
if  about  one-fifth  of  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem  were  engaged  in 
the  manufacture  of  objects  of  olive  wood.  Canes,  boxes,  port- 
folios, candle-sticks,  and  a  hundred  other  things  were  made  of 
olive  wood,  and  some  of  them  were  very  pretty. 


THE    TOWERS    AND    WALLS    OF    THE    HOLY    CITY, 


387 


Jerusalem  is  the  same  towered  city  as  of  old,  and  her  walls 
have  a  massive  appearance.  Sultan  Suleiman  erected  them,  as 
they  now  stand,  in  the  year  1 542 ;  but  portions  of  them  were 
standing  before  that  time,  and  some  of  the  towers  have  under- 
gone very  little  change  in  the  various  calamities  which  the  city 
has  suffered.  The  latter  portions  were  built  from  the  ruins  of 
the  older  walls  and  generally  on  the  sites  of  their  predecessors, 
so  that  the  city  has  preserved  its  form  with  but  little  alteration. 

The  distance  around  the  walls  is  about  two  and  a  half  miles, 
and  in  this  distance  there  are  five  gates  ;  the  most  important  of 
these  are  the  Jaffa  gate  and  the  Damascus  gate,  the  others  being 
but  little  used.     There  are  two  gates  wholly  or  partially  walled 

up  ;    one  of  them         _____„ 

being  the  Golden.  ^fll^^^^^^^^lHHHHK^^/ 
Gate  on  Mount 
Moriah,  and  the 
other,  the  gate  of 
Herod.  The  prin- 
cipal streets  of  the 
city  run  at  right 
angles,  and  by 
them  Jerusalem  is 
divided  into  the 
Moslem,  the  Chris- 
tian, the  Jewish, 
and  the  American 
quarters. 

So  much  for  the  general  description  of  Jerusalem. 

To  those  familiar  with  Bible  history,  the  enumeration  of  the 
holy  places  of  Jerusalem  would  be  to  repeat  many  names  with 
which  they  are  already  familiar  ;  to  those  ^vho  are  not  Biblical 
students,  the  list  would  be  tediously  long  ;  I  shall  therefore  con- 
fine my  account  of  Jerusalem  to  the  story  of  what  we  saw  and 
did  during  our  brief  stay.  Any  one  wishing  to  know  more  of 
the  city  has  doubtless  within  his  reach  one  or  more  books,  that 
will  give  the  required  information.  A  perusal  of  the  Bible,  es- 
pecially of  those  portions  describing  Jerusalem,  would  not  prove 
at  all  injurious. 


INTERIOR  OF  GOLDEN  GATE. 


388  SITE    OF    THE    GREAT    TEMI'LE    OF    KING    SOLOMON. 

Accompanied  by  a  guide  and  by  a  janizary  of  the  consulate, 
we  started  out  of  the  hotel  in  the  morning  and  descended  the 
street  of  David  to  the  entrance  of  the  Haram  or  Sacred  Enclo- 
sure, the  name  given  by  the  Arabs  to  the  portion  of  Mount  Mo- 
riah  that  contains  the  Mosques  of  Omar  and  El-Aska,  and  for- 
merly contained  the  great  temple  built  by  King  Solomon. 

The  Haram  occupies  a  large  space,  almost  equal  to  a  fourth  of 
the  city  ;  it  is  surrounded  by  strong  walls  and  is  dotted  with 
platforms,  niches  for  prayer,  cupolas  and  olive  trees  in  addition  to 


SITE  OF  THE   TEMPLE,  JERUSALhM. 

the  mosques  for  which  it  is  famous.  We  entered  by  a  gate  in  the 
wall,  and  the  transition  was  quite  sudden  from  the  confused  mass 
of  houses  where  we  had  been  wandering  to  the  open  space  cf  the 
Haram.  We  ascended  a  flight  of  steps  to  a  broad  platform,  and 
stood  in  front  of  Kubbet-es-Sukrah,  or  Dome  of  the  Rock,  as  the 
central  mosque  is  called. 

It  is  generally  known  as  the  Mosque  of  Omar,  for  the  reason 
that  the  Kalif  Omar  is  credited  with  its   construction.     There 


THE    MOSOUE    OF    OMAR. 


i89 


ANCIENT   SIGNET   RING. 


are  two  or  three  stories  about  its  origin,  but,  whatever  that  may 
have  been,  the  architect  deserves  great  credit  for  erecting  a  build- 
ing beautiful  in  itself  and  quite  in  keeping  with  the  surroundings. 
It  stands  on  the  very  summit  o£  Mount  Moriah  on  the  sacred 
rock,  supposed  to  have  been  the  site  of  the  threshing  floor  of  Or- 
nan,  the  Jebusite,  which  King  David  bought  for  fifty  shekels  of 
silver.  The  building  is  octagonal,  and 
each  of  the  sides  measure  sixty-seven 
feet.  The  octagonal  form  is  preserved 
in  the  interior,  where  the  rock  is  in- 
closed in  a  railing  and  rises  above  the 
level  of  the  floor. 

Unfortunately,  the  mosque  was  un- 
dergoing repairs  at  the  time  of  our  visit, 
and  the  interior  was  full  of  scaffolding, 
while  the  floor  was  covered  with  rubbish. 
But  we  could  see  enough  to  show  that 
the  mosque  is  a  structure  of  great  beauty. 
The  lower  part  of  the  wall  is  composed  of  colored  marbles  in 
complex  patterns,  and  the  ugper  part  contains  no  less  than  fifty- 
six  windows  of  stained  glass,  equalling  in  beautv  anvthino-  that 
can  be  found  in  Westminster  Abbey  or  the  cathedrals  of  Europe. 

The  dome  presents  an  imposing  appear- 
ance, whether  seen  from  the  outside  or 
from  within.  Externally  it  is  a  prom- 
inent feature  of  Jerusalem,  and  no 
picture  of  the  holy  city  would  be  com- 
plete without  it. 

Antiquarians  are  in  doubt  as  to  the 
extent  of  the  great  temple,  but  there  is 
likely  to  be  a  complete  solution  of  the 
difficult  questions  when  the  work  of  the 
Palestine  Exploration  Society  is  fin- 
ished. The  English  and  American  sections  are  working  in  per- 
fect harmony,  and  have  portioned  out  their  territories  so  that  they 
shall  not  come  in  contact  or  perform  the  same  work  twice  over. 
Part  of  their  efforts  are  directed  to  settling  the  discussions  about 
the  extent  of  Solomon's  Temple,  and  they  have  already  made 
some  important  discoveries. 


ANCIENT   STGVF.T    RING. 


390 


BENEATH  THE  GREAT  TEMPLE. 


We  were  shown  the  localites  of  the  excavations,  and  after  vis- 
iting the  two  mosques  in  the  Haram  we  went  below  ground  to 
look  at  the  substruction  of  the  great  temple.  We  descended  a 
flight  of  steps  into  a  subterranean  ajDartment  where  there  is  a 
sculptured  niche,  which  bears  the  name  of  "  The  Cradle  of  Je- 
sus "  Our  guide  lighted  some  candles,  and  wc  kept  on  down  an- 
otlicr  flight  of  steps  th.;t  brought  us  ii.to  sr^mc  vaults,  containing 

numerous  pillars 
about  fi\"c  feet 
square  and  con- 
structed of  huge 
stones.  The 
arches  supported 
by  these  pillars 
were  generally 
semi- circular, 
and  the  whole 
work  had  an  ap- 
pearance of  great 
durability.  Only 
a  portion  of  this 
subterranean 
space  has  been 
explored,  and  the 
extent  of  the 
arched  space  is 
unknown.  These 
substructions 
were  for  the  purpose  of  making  the  ground  level  and  thus  pre- 
pare it  for  the  foundation  of  the  great  temple. 

We  were  shown  some  roots  of  trees  that  have  made  their  way 
through  the  platform  and  run  a  long  distance  through  the  under- 
ground debris.  The  crusaders  used  these  vaults  as  stables,  and 
some  of  the  holes  in  the  pillars  where  they  fastened  their  horses 
can  still  be  seen      None  of  the  horses  are  there. 

Jerusalem  is  emphatically  the  Holy  City.  It  is  a  little  singu- 
lar that  it  should  be  venerated  by  the  disciples  of  three  great 
teachers,  Moses,  Christ,  and  Mohammed,  and  that  while  Chris- 


EXPLOKING    THE   SUBSTRUCTIONS. 


WHERE    MOHAMMED    WENT    UP    TO    HEAVEN. 


393 


tians  call  it  the  Sacred  City,  the  Arabs  should  have  almost  a  sim- 
ilar title  for  it.  Its  Arabic  name  El-Ktids  signifies  "  The  Holy," 
and  the  rock  beneath  the  dome  of  the  Mosque  of  Omar  is  the  lo- 
cality of  the  triple  veneration. 

At  the  south-east  corner  of  the  rock,  we  were  conducted  into 
a  chamber  or  excavation,  called  the  Noble  Cave.  It  is  asserted 
to  be  the  praying  place  of  Abraham,  David,  Solomon,  and  Jesus, 
and  in  its  center  there  is  a  slab  of  marble  covering  a  cavity,  which 
is  called  the  well  of  spirits  by  the  Moslems.  Some  call  it  the 
gate  of  Paradise  and  others  say  it  leads  to  a  place  whose  charac- 


C--    r^^-t/-^'^ 


THE    VALLEY   OF  JEHOSHAPHAT. 

ter  is  quite  the  reverse.     The  guide  stamped  upon  it,  and  the 
sound  that  resulted  showed  that  the  place  was  hollow. 

It  is  generally  claimed  that  this  rock,  now  covered  by  the  dome 
of  the  mosque,  was  the  site  of  the  altar  of  Solomon's  Temple. 
The  Jews  used  to  come  to  this  rock  as  far  back  as  the  fourth 
century  to  wail  over  the  departed  glories  of  Jerusalem  ;  but  when 
the  Moslems  took  the  city,  and  appropriated  the  spot,  a  new  wail- 
ing place  was  selected  On  one  corner  of  the  rock  the  guide 
showed  the  footprints  of  Mohammed,  where  his  foot  last  touched 
the  earth  when  he  went  up  to  heaven  ;  and  near  it  is  the  hand 


394  MEMORABLE    PLACES. 

print  of  the  Angel,  who  seized  the  rock  and  held  it  down  to  pre- 
vent its  going  to  heaven  along  with  the  Prophet. 

Thus  the  Jews  revere  the  spot  as  the  site  of  the  altar  of 
their  temple ;  the  Christians  revere  it  as  the  praying  place 
of  Jesus,  and  the  Moslems  revere  it  for  the  reason  above  given. 
Strange  indeed  that  it  should  thus  be  the  sacred  spot  of  three 
distinct  religions.  No  other  place  of  the  globe  compares  with  it 
in  holiness. 

We  looked  from  the  walls  of  the  temple  over  into  the  Valley 
of  Jehoshaphat  and  saw  Absalom's  pillar  and  other  objects  of  in- 


WAILING    PLACE   OF   THE  JEWS,    JERUSALEM. 

terest.  The  garden  of  Gethsemane  was  pointed  out,  and  over 
against  us  was  the  Mount  of  Olives  with  its  triple  summit  and 
the  crown  of  the  Church  of  the  Ascension,  and  the  building 
erected  by  the  Prince sse  de  la  tour  /'  Aiivergne.  The  olive  trees 
had  lost  their  leaves  and  were  bleak  and  bare,  and  the  sides  of 
the  hill  had  an  uninviting  appearance. 

Down  to  the  Brook  Kedron  our  gaze  extended,  or  rather  to  its 
bed,  as  the  valley  was  dry  and  dusty  as  if  no  brook  had  ever 
flowed  there.  Other  places  of  historical  or  traditional  note  were 
pointed  out,  but  we  were  too  far  away  to  discern  them  clearly. 


B 

.  -m 

fs4-d^ 

At 

THE  ANCIENT  QUARRIES  OF  THE  GREAT  TEMPLE.     397 

We  left  the  temple  and  proceeded  to  the  wailing  place  of  the 
the  Jews.  Here  are  the  foundations  or  a  small  portion  of  the 
lower  walls  of  the  great  temple  where,  every  Friday,  the  Jews 
come  to  wail  and  weep  over  their  downfall.  Half  a  dozen  Jews 
were  there  are  the  time  of  our  visit  ;  with  their  faces  to  the  stone, 
they  read  from  their  prayer  books  in  a  low  wailing  tone  that  was 
exceedingly  impressive.  t 

At  the  wailing  place  there  were  visible  five  courses  of  beveled 
stones  in  a  fine  state  of  preservation  ;  in  some  places  they  have 
been  worn  considerably  by  the  kisses  of  the  devotees,  that  for 
many  centuries  have  pressed  around  them  and  wept  for  the 
downfall  of  Jerusalem.  Both  sexes  and  all  ages  are  represented 
here,  and  they  have  come  from  all  quarters  of  the  globe. 

"  Oh  !  weep  for  those  that  wept  by  Babel's  stream, 
Whose  shrines  are  desolate,  whose  land  a  dream  ; 
Weep  for  the  harp  of  Judah's  broken  spell ; 

Mourn — where  their  God  hath  dwelt,  the  godless  dwell." 

From  the  Place  of  Wailing  we  returned  to  the  hotel,  and, 
as  soon  as  we  had  taken  lunch  proceeded  to  The  Quarries,  an 
excavation   which    is   entered    just   outside   of    the    Damascus 

gate. 

This  is  supposed  to  be  the  locality  whence  came  the  stone  for 
the  Great  Temple,  and  it  was  only  a  few  years  ago  that  it  was  dis- 
covered. The  quarries  extend  beneath  the  city,  and  one  can  walk 
more  than  half  a  mile  from  the  entrance  directly  under  Jeru- 
salem. 

We  wandered  around  here  for  about  an  hour,  lighted  by  can- 
dles that  saved  us  many  a  disagreeable  fall.  The  slope  of  the 
interior  is  very  steep,  and  how  the  stones  were  managed  there, 
is  a  mystery.  The  Judge  had  several  slips,  but  none  of  them  were 
serious,  as  they  all  happened  among  the  sand  and  smaller  chips 
of  limestone.  On  our  return  to  the  hotel,  he  took  a  respectful 
position  in  the  rear  of  the  party,  and  for  an  hour  or  more  was 
locked  in  the  recesses  of  his  own  room.  What  he  did  while 
thus  secluded,  I  cannot  say,  but  I  know  that  he  summoned  a 
servant  to  bring  him  a  needle  and  some  thread. 


J,.^, 


K--^ 


L   K 


CHAPTER     XXXI. 

AMONG  THE   MONKS. 

From  the  Gates  of  Jerusalem  to  Bethlehem — A  Touching  Incident — Tent-Life  at 
Bethlehem — The  Milk  Grotto — Its  Miraculous  Character — The  "  Doubter  "  Ex- 
presses Himself — The  Oldest  Christian  Church  in  the  World — Quarrelsome 
Monks— A  Deadly  Fight — Remarkable  Conduct  of  the  "  Doubter  " — Pious  Pil- 
grims— A  Christmas  Festival — A  Corpulent  and  Hospitable  Monk — A  Wearisome 
Ceremony — The  Monks  in  Costume — The  Women  of  Bethlehem — A  Bevy  of 
Beauties — Under  Guard — Armenian  Soldiers — Travelling  to  Saba — Among  the 
Monks — A  Curious  Convent — Armed  Against  the  Bedouins. 


WE  were  in  the  Holy  Land  at  Christmas  time,  and  arranged 
to  attend  the  Christmas  eve  festivities  in  Bethlehem. 
About  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  the  day  before  Christmas 
we  mounted  our  horses  and  turned  our  attention  to  the  southern 
horizon. 

Out  of  the  Jaffa  gate  we  filed,  and  then  past  the  Hill  of  Evil 
Counsel,  and  near  the  so-called  Lower  Aqueduct  we  took  the 
road  to  Bethlehem. 

The  road  was  much  like  that  which  brought  us  to  Jerusalem — 
a  path  among  rocks  and  hills — though  the  latter  were  less  abrupt, 
and  there  were  in  many  places  considerable  areas  of  tillable 
land.  It  is  a  ride  of  less  than  two  hours  from  one  city  to  the 
other,  and  there  are  few  objects  of  interest  along  the  route 
Rachel's  Tomb  was  pointed  out,  and  also  the  well,  whose  waters 
David  longed  for  when  he  was  in  the  cave  of  Adullam. 

The  Tomb  of  Rachel  is  a  small  building,  surmounted  with 
a  dome,  and  possessing  no  peculiar  features.  The  structure  is 
modern,  and  probably  in   the  thirty  centuries  that  have  passed 

(398) 


STANDING    BY    "THE    MANGER.  4OI 

since  Rachel  was  buried  there,  several  buildings  have  crumbled 
to  dust  and  been  replaced  by  pious  hands. 

The  authenticity  of  the  spot  is  vouched  for  by  all  who  have 
written  on  the  subject,  and  the  tomb  is  one  of  the  few  shrines 
which  Jews,  Christians,  and  Moslems  agree  about  in  their  tradi- 
tions, and  have  not  seen  fit  to  quarrel  over.  We  made  a  short 
halt,  and  one  of  our  party  read  aloud  from  the  Bible  the  brief 
and  touching  narrative  of  Rachel's  death.  It  had  a  new  and 
fresh  interest  to  us,  and  we  all  listened  attentively  to  the  simple 
story. 

Bethlehem  is  on  a  rather  steep  hill-side,  and  presents  an 
appearance  of  terraces  as  one  looks  at  it  from  a  short  distance. 
It  has  the  low  mud  walls  and  flat  roofs  of  most  Syrian  towns, 
and  apart  from  its  historical  interest,  and  the  possession  of  the 
Church  of  the  Nativity,  it  is  of  little  importance.  As  we 
approached  it,  the  convent  on  the  eastern  side  presents  an 
appearance,  not  unlike  that  of  a  baronial  castle  of  the  Rhine  or 
Danube,  and  recalls  to  us  some  of  the  walls  that  frown  upon 
those  famous  rivers  or  overlook  the  lovely  valleys  ot  Western 
Germany.  Coming  nearer,  the  soft  lines  of  the  picture  become 
clearly  defined,  and  as  we  enter  the  city  and  thread  its  streets, 
we  find  that  it  is  not  unlike  Jerusalem  and  Jaffa  and  other 
places  in  Syria,  through  which  we  have  journeyed. 

There  is  no  hotel  at  Bethlehem,  and  the  influx  of  strangers 
consequent  upon  the  Christmas  festivities  had  filled  the  Latin 
convent  to  its  fullest  capacity.  We  determined  to  begin  our 
camp  life  here,  and  so  sent  our  tents  forward  in  the  morning,  to 
be  ready  for  our  arrival. 

We  found  them  pitched  in  a  little  field  just  outside  the  town, 
and  close  to  the  "  Milk  Grotto,"  where  tradition  relates  that  the 
Virgin  and  Child  hid  themselves  from  the  fury  of  Herod,  some- 
time before  the  flight  into  Egypt.  Here  the  Virgin  nursed  the 
Child,  and  the  soft  stone  is  said  to  have  the  miraculous  power  of 
wonderfully  increasing  women's  milk.  Bits  of  it  are  carried  to 
all  parts  of  the  world  for  this  purpose.  The  Abbe  Geramb  says 
of  it : 

"  I  make  no  remarks  on  the  virtue  of  these  stones,  but  affirm  as  an  ascertained 
fact,  that  a  great  number  of  persons  have  found  from  it  the  effect  they  anticipate." 


402  PUGNACIOUS    MONKS. 

Of  course  we  visited  the  grotto,  which  was  a  *sort  of  chapel, 
lighted  with  lamps.  The  "  Doubter  "  asserted  his  lack  of  faith 
in  the  virtue  of  the  stone,  but  nevertheless  he  brought  away 
some  of  it,  but  refused  to  give  the  customary  gratuity  to  the 
custodian,  much  to  the  disgust  of  the  latter. 

From  the  Milk  Grotto  we  went  to  the  Church  of  the  Nativity, 
beset  at  every  step,  as  we  were  at  every  moment  on  the  streets 
of  Bethlehem,  by  venders  of  ornaments  of  olive  wood  and  mother 
of  pearl.  The  church,  if  we  include  the  buildings  connected 
with  it,  covers  a  large  area,  as  it  belongs  to  three  rival  sects  of 
Latins,  Greeks,  and  Armenians,  and  each  has  a  convent  or  mon- 
astery connected  with  it.  The  churcli  itself  is  about  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  feet  by  one  hundred  and  ten,  and  is  divided 
into  a  nave  and  four  aisles  by  Corinthian  columns,  which  sup- 
port horizontal  architraves. 

The  pavement  and  roof  are  in  very  bad  condition,  and  the 
whole  church  looks  as  if  it  would  soon  tumble  to  pieces.  It  was 
built  by  the  Empress  Helena,  in  the  early  part  of  the  fourth  cen- 
tury, and  is  probably  the  oldest  monument  of  Christian  architec- 
ture in  the  world. 

The  reason  of  its  dilapidated  condition  is  found  in  the  jeal- 
ousy of  the  rival  sects  of  monks  ;  any  two  of  them  will  unite  to 
prevent  the  third  making  the  repairs  so  much  needed,  and  no 
two  of  them  will  consent  to  allow  another  to  have  anything  to 
do  with  the  church.  Several  times  the  monks  have  had  fights 
for  the  decoration  or  possession  of  the  Grotto  of  the  Nativity, 
and  it  has  been  found  necessary  for  the  government  to  station 
soldiers  there,  to  preserve  order. 

Two  or  three  years  ago,  one  of  the  factions  set  fire  to  the 
decorations  which  another  had  put  up,  and  the  whole  place  was 
filled  with  smoke,  and  some  of  the  walls  were  disfigured.  Dur- 
ing the  fight  at  the  fire  some  of  the  monks  were  killed,  and  up 
to  the  present  time  there  is  a  continuance  of  the  feeling  of  hos- 
tility. The  Crimean  war  owes  its  origin,  in  part,  to  the  question 
of  the  possession  of  the  Church  of  the  Nativity,  and  more  than 
once  a  few  square  inches  of  the  rock  floor  of  the  grotto  have  been 
very  nearly  the  cause  of  war  in  Europe.  The  whole  space  is  care- 
fully parcelled  out  among  the  rival  sects,  and  Turkish  soldiers 


THE    "doubter's"    MANIPULATIONS,  4O3 

are  constantly  on  duty  there,  to  preserve  order  !     How  we  Chris- 
tians love  one  another. 

Guided  by  a  native  Christian,  a  dealer  in  relics,  who  spoke 
French,  and  attached  himself  to  us  with  an  eye  to  business,  we 
entered  the  church,  and  descended  a  flight  of  steps  to  the  grotto, 
a  low  vault  about  forty  feet  long  by  twelve  feet  wide.  At  the 
eastern  end  is  a  marble  slab  in  the  pavement,  and  in  the  centre 
of  the  slab  is  a  silver  star,  bearing  the  inscription  : 

"Hic  DE  ViRGiNE  Maria  Jesus  Christ  Natus  est." 

"  Here  Jesus  Christ  was  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary." 

Every  moment  pious  pilgrims  entered  the  grotto,  and  kneeling, 
kissed  the  star.  Our  guide  kissed  it,  and  so  did  another  native 
Christian  who  followed  us,  and  each  monk,  as  he  entered,  gave  a 
similar  sign  of  his  reverence  and  his  faith.  The  "  Doubter  " 
knelt,  and  the  rest  of  us  were  dumb  with  surprise,  as  he  was  a 
persistent  scoffer  at  everything  in  the  shape  of  religion,  and  had 
no  more  reverence  than  a  crocodile.  P^or  a  moment,  we  thought 
he  had  been  the  object  of  a  miracle,  and  that  we  should  have 
occasion  to  record  a  conversion  of  a  most  remarkable  character. 

But  it  resulted  otherwise  ;  he  rubbed  his  hands  several  times 
over  the  star — a  spot  which  all  the  pilgrims  around  us  were  re- 
garding with  the  deepest  reverence — rubbed  it  as  one  feels  the 
texture  of  a  piece  of  cloth,  and  then  rose  to  his  feet. 

To  our  united  enquiry  as  to  what  in  the  world  he  was  trying 
to  do,  he  said  he  wanted  to  find  out  what  the  inscription  was. 
We  said  nothing  at  the  time,  as  the  place  was  not  a  proper  one 
for  a  lecture,  but  when  we  got  outside  didn't  we  give  it  to  him  ? 

Sixteen  silver  lamps  burn  constantly,  year  in  and  year  out,  over 
the  star,  and  behind  them  are  little  pictures  of  saints,  some  of 
them  set  with  precious  stones.  Over  the  star  is  a  plain  altar, 
which  belongs  to  all  the  sects  in  common,  and  each  must  dress 
it  with  the  proper  ornaments,  when  its  turn  comes  to  celebrate 
mass.  There  is  a  small  chapel,  dedicated  to  "  The  Manger,"  on 
the  south  side  of  the  grotto,  and  at  the  other  end  of  the  grotto 
is  the  Chapel  of  the  Innocents,  dedicated  to  the  children  slain 
by  Herod.  There  are  several  other  grottos  beneath  the  church, 
and  all  of  them  are  of  a  sacred  character. 

It  was  dark  when  we  left  the  church  and  returned  to  our  tents 
to  dine  and  take  a  short  rest,  preparatory  to  a  vigil  long  after 


404  A    CORPULENT    PRIEST. 

midnight,  to  witness  the  ceremonies  of  Christmas  Eve.  Table 
was  set  in  one  of  the  tents,  and  we  dined  better  than  at  any  of 
the  Syrian  hotels.  We  had  brought  a  bottle  of  champagne  from 
Jerusalem  and  finished  the  meal  with  a  Christmas  glass  to  friends 
at  home. 

Before  leaving  Jerusalem  for  Bethlehem,  we  found  that  our 
Consul,  Dr.  De  Hass,  was  going  there  with  his  wife,  and  had 
secured  quarters  in  the  Armenian  convent.  We  saw  them  soon 
after  our  arrival,  and  arranged  to  call  on  them  about  ten  o'clock 
in  the  evening,  and  while  away  some  of  the  time  previous  to  the 
ceremony. 

Taking  our  dragoman  to  guide  us,  we  found  the  convent,  and 
after  wandering  through  several  corridors,  were  shown  into  the 
waiting  room,  where  two  or  three  men  were  asleep  on  divans. 
One  of  them  was  the  janizary  of  the  Consul,  and  after  rousing 
him  and  waiting  till  he  rubbed  his  eyes  into  the  proper  position 
of  openness,  we  sent  a  message  to  Dr.  De  Hass. 

He  came  at  once  to  meet  us,  and  behind  him  was  a  stout,  rosy, 
well-fed  monk,  of  the  Armenian  brotherhood,  with  a  heavy  bunch 
of  keys  dangling  at  his  waist.  Evidently,  a  monastic  life  agreed 
with  him.  He  was  the  very  picture  of  health,  with  possibly  a 
trifle  more  flesh  on  his  bones  than  most  of  us  would  desire.  He 
could  speak  no  language  that  we  knew,  but  he  motioned  us  to 
seats,  and  in  a  few  moments  served  us  some  excellent  tea,  which 
we  found  quite  refreshing.  In  tea-drinking  and  conversation, 
half  an  hour  passed  away.  A  little  before  eleven  o'clock  we 
entered  the  church,  which  was  rapidly  filling  up  for  the  service. 

We  decided  not  to  go  into  the  innermost  part  of  the  church, 
as  we  would  be  unable  to  get  out,  in  case  the  ceremonies  were 
prolonged  to  a  very  unusually  late  hour,  and  so  we  halted  in  the 
vestibule,  while  the  consular  party  went  forward  to  take  seats 
among  the  dignitaries. 

The  priests  were  busy  with  the  mass,  and  the  church  was 
rapidly  filling,  so  that  in  a  little  while  it  was  difficult  to  find  stand- 
ing room.  Most  of  those  present  were  young  girls,  and  I  judge 
by  their  similarity  of  dress,  that  they  came  from  a  school,  or  were 
under  some  general  management.  They  were  in  white  Turkish 
trowsers  and  overskirts,  and  their  head-dresses  were  quite  richly 


BETHLEHEM  NYMPHS  AT  THE  GROTTO.  4O7 

decorated  with  coins  and  mother-of-pearl  ornaments.  They  knelt 
on  the  ground,  and  maintained  their  kneeling  position  for  a  long  time 
without  apparent  fatigue,  though  some  of  them  who  were  doubt- 
less accustomed  to  early  hours,  fell  asleep,  or  looked  very  drowsy. 
Bethlehem  has  some  celebrity  for  the  beauty  of  its  women, 
and  in  looking  over  that  congregation  I  think  I  saw  more  pretty 
faces  than  I  had  seen  elsewhere  in  all  Syria.  In  the  vestibule 
there  were  two  confessionals,  and  at  each  of  them  there  was  a 
line  of  young  women  and  girls,  waiting  for  their  opportunities,  as 
a  crowd  waits  at  a  post-office,  or  the  ticket-box  of  a  theatre.  To 
judge  by  the  attendance  at  the  confessional,  I  should  suspect 
that  these  young  misses  were  not  the  models  of  all  that  is  good 
in  the  world. 

The  church  was  blazing  with  candles,  and  the  Christmas  deco- 
rations were  pretty,  but  there  was  nothing  unusual  in  this  part 
of  the  service.  What  we  had  come  to  see  was  the  procession  to 
the  Grotto  of  the  Nativity,  and  we  were  anxious  to  know  when 
this  was  to  come  off. 

The  heat  of  the  candles  and  the  bad  atmosphere  rendered  the 
church  quite  uncomfortable,  and  so  we  wandered  off  into  the 
Greek  portion,  where  there  was  no  service  and  only  a  few  people. 
Turkish  soldiers  were  standing  around,  ready  to  suppress  any 
tumult,  and  other  soldiers  were  within  call. 

We  loitered  around  here  for  awhile,  and  then  descended  to  the 
grotto,  which  was  hot  and  full  of  foul  air,  like  the  church.  Be- 
tween the  church,  the  grotto,  and  the  Greek  church  and  the 
corridors  of  the  Armenian  Convent,  we  whiled  away  the  time 
until  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  when  we  descended  the  stairs  to 
take  scats  on  a  stone  bench  in  front  of  the  Grotto  of  the  Manger, 
and  not  more  than  ten  feet  from  the  sacred  silver  star. 

Here  we  sat  nearly  an  hour,  watching*  occasional  pilgrims, 
descending  the  stairway  and  kissing  the  shrine,  and  the  prepara- 
tions for  the  grand  procession.  There  are  two  stairways,  one 
belonging  to  the  Latins,  and  the  other  to  the  Greeks  and  Arme- 
nians. The  latter  staircase  was  most  of  the  time  crowded  by 
Greek  and  Armenian  monks,  but  they  were  not  allowed  to  descend 
into  the  grotto,  except  on  one  occasion,  when  a  Greek  priest,  clad 
in  rich  robes,  carried  a  censer  in  front  of  the  shrine  and  repeated 
24 


408  WORSHIPPING    UNDER    GUARD. 

a  prayer.  I  fancy  that  he  did  it  less  out  of  reverential  feeling 
than  to  show  the  Latins  that  he  had  a  right  to  perform  service 
there. 

A  long  service  was  read  in  the  Grotto  of  the  Manger,  called 
also  the  Grotto  of  Adoration,  and  finally  the  floor  was  cleared, 
and  a  heavy  carpet  was  spread  in  front  of  the  shrine.  When 
the  carpet  was  brought,  the  grotto  was  filled  with  people,  who 
were  pushed  back  with  considerable  rudeness,  all  except  the 
strangers — a  dozen  or  more,  including  ourselves.  These  were  all 
treated  with  great  respe.ct,  and  allowed  the  best  places  for  wit- 
nessing the  ceremonies. 

All  this  time  the  soldiers  stood  there  with  fixed  bayonets,  and 
once  in  the  progress  of  the  service  the  guard  was  changed,  with 
a  good  deal  of  the  clang  of  arms,  that  had  a  strange  sound  at 
such  a  time  and  place. 

Finally,  when  it  was  near  three  o'clock,  we  heard  the  sound  of 
a  chant  proceeding  from  the  church,  and  coming  nearer  and 
nearer.  Soon  the  sound  reached  the  head  of  the  Latin  stairway, 
and  craning  our  heads  around,  we  saw  the  front  of  the  procession. 
Now  it  descended,  and  slowly  and  slowly  it  came  into  view. 

Eight  boys  carrying  candles,  and  robed  in  the  white  vestments, 
familiar  to  those  who  attend  the  Catholic  service,  led  the  way, 
and  behind  them  were  priests  and  monks,  to  the  number  of 
twenty  or  more,  all  richly  dressed  in  the  appropriate  robes. 

I  regret  to  be  unable  to  give  the  ecclesiastical  rank  of  all  the 
personages  in  the  procession,  and  can  only  say  that  they  included 
all  the  dignitaries  of  the  Latin  church  in  this  part  of  Syria,  and 
I  was  told  that  two  persons,  high  in  office,  had  been  sent  from 
Rome,  to  be  present  on  this  occasion. 

Behind  these  holy  men  were  the  Consuls  of  France,  Italy, 
Austria,  and  other  Catholic  countries,  and  some  French  and 
Italian  military  and  naval  officers,  who  happened  to  be  in  Jerusa- 
lem in  time  for  the  ceremonies.  The  forward  part  of  the  pro- 
cession entirely  filled  the  grotto,  so  that  the  Consuls  stood  on  the 
stairway  near  the  bottom  while  the  service  was  going  on. 

The  service  was  short,  and  was  read  slowly  and  distinctly, 'with 
many  genuflections  and  obeisances  of  adoration.  The  service 
lasted  less  than  fifteen  minutes,  and  ended  with  the  presentation 


A    CONVENT    IN    THE    CLIFF.  4I I 

of  a  doll  in  a  cradle.  Then  the  procession  slowly  retired,  as  it 
had  entered,  and  the  solemn  chant  died  away  in  the  distance. 
We  returned  to  our  tents,  and  as  I  took  out  my  watch  to  wind  it, 
I  found  that  the  time  was  half-past  three  in  the  morning.  Rather 
a  late  bed-time  in  a  country  where  early  hours  are  the  fashion. 

We  did  not  hurry  in  the  morning,  but  paid  another  visit  to  the 
church,  where  we  found  the  grotto  full  of  people,  as  on  the  day 
before.  About  ten  o'clock  we  started  for  our  day's  ride  to  Mar 
Saba,  where  our  tents  had  been  sent  forward.  We  halted  on  the 
way  at  the  Grotto  of  the  Shepherds,  the  place  where  the  shep- 
herds were  told  of  the  coming  of  Christ, 

The  route  from  this  point  lay  over  a  rough  country,  and  in 
some  places  we  could  look  far  down  into  glens  several  hundred 
feet  deep.  Some  parts  of  the  way  the  path  was  along  the  edge 
of  these  steep  hillsides,  and  was  not  very  wide.  I  didn't  like  it 
over  much,  as  my  horse  had  an  inexplicable  desire  to  walk  as  near 
the  edge  as  possible  I  argued  with  a  whip,  to  cure  him  of  this 
habit,  but  he  would  not  be  cured,  and  I  had  to  trust  to  luck. 
Happily,  no  accident  befell  any  of  us. 

We  reached  Mar  Saba  a  couple  of  hours  before  sunset,  and 
found  the  tents  near  the  convent.  St.  Saba  is  reported  to  have 
come  here  in  the  fourth  century  and  entered  the  cave  of  a  lion, 
who  kindly  got  up  and  left  when  the  holy  man  entered.  To  re- 
move all  doubt  upon  this  point,  they  show  you  the  cave.  The 
convent  is  built  in  a  peculiarly  wild  and  rocky  locality,  overlook- 
ing the  precipitous  valley  of  the  Brook  Kedron. 

From  one  part  of  the  wall  you  can  drop  a  penny  or  a  pebble  in 
a  sheer  fall  of  five  hundred  feet.  The  building  is  an'  extraordi- 
nary one,  as  it  is  stuck  against  and  over  a  cliff,  full  of  natural  and 
artificial  caves  in  such  a  way  that  it  is  impossible  to  tell  what  is 
masonry  and  what  is  natural  rock. 

To  visit  the  convent,  one  needs  a  permit  from  the  Superior  at 
Jerusalem.  We  had  the  proper  document,  and  it  was  delivered  ; 
the  monks  carefully  surveyed  us  from  a  wall  far  above  our  heads, 
and  then  gave  orders  for  the  opening  of  a  massive  and  strongly- 
bolted  door. 

No  woman  is  allowed,  under  any  circumstances,  to  cross  the 
threshold  of  Mar  Saba.     Harriet  Martineau  says  the  monks  are 


412  SKULLS    AND    CROSSBONES. 

too  holy  to  be  hospitable,  and  another  has  added  that  they  are 
too  pious  to  be  good.  We  were  not  admitted  until  the  one  lady 
of  our  party  had  walked  a  sufficient  distance  away  to  prevent  the 
possibility  of  her  darting  in  when  the  door  was  opened. 

There  are  sixty  monks  in  all  at  Mar  Saba.  The  convent  is 
reported  to  be  rich,  but  the  monks  are  not  a  corpulent  lot,  and 
have  a  general  indication  of  living  in  a  bad  boarding-house. 
They  never  eat  flesh,  and  their  exercises  are  very  severe.  One 
of  them  showed  us  about,  and  a  dozen  or  more  of  the  rest  spread 
out  on  the  pavement  of  the  court,  a  quantity  of  canes,  beads, 
crosses,  shells,  and  olive-wood  ornaments,  in  the  hope  of  selling 
some  of  them. 

We  gave  our  guide  a  couple  of  francs  for  showing  us  around. 
He  was  particular  to  ask  if  it  was  for  himself  or  the  convent. 
Of  course  we  told  him  it  was  personal,  and  he  thereupon  asked 
us  again,  in  a  voice  sufficiently  loud  to  make  his  companions  hear 
and  understand  the  situation. 

There  is  a  very  old  palm-tree,  said  to  have  been  planted  by  the 
saint  in  person  ;  they  showed  us  the  tomb  of  St.  Saba,  two  or 
three  chapels,  and  a  quantity  of  bones,  belonging  to  the  monks 
that  lived  there  in  the  seventh  century,  and  were  massacred  by 
the  Persians  There  is  a  curious  picture  of  the  massacre,  and  it 
hangs  over  the  skulls  and  arm-bones  of  the  unhappy  victims. 
The  convent  was  captured  two  or  three  times  during  the  crusades, 
but  for  several  centuries  it  has  rested  in  peace.  It  is  in  the  midst 
of  the  country  of  the  Bedouins,  but  the  monks  never  permit  the 
Bedouins  inside  the  door,  and  the  walls  are  strong  enough  to 
resist  any  attacks  they  might  make. 


CHAPTER     X  XXII. 

AMONG  THE   BEDOUINS.— TRAVELLING  UNDER   ESCORT,  AND 
LIVING    IN   TENTS. 

Sleeping  under  Tents— A  Bedouin  Encampment— A  howl  for  "  Backsheesh"— A 
Queer  crowd— An  illusion  dispelled— An  eccentric  "  rooster"— Our  guard— A  lit- 
tle bit  of  humbug—"  Going  for"  the  "  Doubter"— A  case  of  blackmail— On  g^ard 
against  Robbers— A  protection  from  the  Sheik— Thievery  as  a  profession— Wa- 
ters without  life— A  curious  bath— A  Flood  of  Gold— The  "  Doubter"  in  a  rain 
storm— A  dangerous  Ford— A  Nocturnal  Mishap — An  atrocious  robber>— The 
"  Doubter"  once  more  in  trouble— A  Turkish  escort— Falling  among  thieves— 
The  Judge's  opinion  on  shrinkage— The  "  Doubter"  in  the  role  of  a  mummy. 

WE  slept  in  our  tents  pretty  soundly,  and  when  the  dragoman 
roused  us  at  six  o'clock,  we  were  not  in  a  mood  for  getting 
up.  We  rose  however,  and  took  our  breakfast  without  delay,  and 
were  off  in  good  season.  We  went  a  short  distance  up  the  valley 
of  the  brook  Kedron,  and  then  crossed  it,  to  turn  away  to  the 
eastward. 

Just  as  we  left  the  valley,  we  passed  a  Bedouin  encampment. 

It  consisted  of  half  a  dozen  black  tents,  the  reverse  of  attract- 
ive, in  appearance,  and  not  more  than  four  feet  high.  A  couple 
of  camels  stood  near  the  tents,  a  dozen  or  more  dogs,  of  a  wolfish 
look,  came  out  and  barked  at  us,  and  as  many  dirty  and  half 
naked  children,  saluted  us  with  the  cry  ''Hadji,  backsheesh" 
"Eadji,  backsheesh;'  "  Pilgrims,  present  ;"  "  Pilgrims,  present." 
All  travellers  in  this  country  are  considered  pilgrims,  and  hence 
the  appellation  they  gave  us. 

A  single  view  of  this  encampment  was  enough  to  dispel  any 
romantic  notions  we  might  have  formed  of  the  delights  of  a  Be- 

(413) 


414 


A    QUEER    ROOSTER. 


douin  life.  There  may  be  something  very  poetical  in  living  with 
these  dirty  Arabs,  but  I  beg  to  be  excused.  I  had  rather  sleep  in 
a  comfortable  bed,  in  a  comfortable  house,  than  in  all  the  Bedouin 
tents  in  Syria.  There  is  a  great  difference  between  romance  and 
reality.     You  remember  Moore's  lines  : 

"  Will  you  come  to  the  bower 

I  have  shaded  for  you  ? 
Your  bed  shall  be  roses 

Bespangled  with  dew." 

Very  nice  aren't  they  .''     Well,  a  fellow  once  took  the   starch 
out  of  them  by  adding  a  line  of  reply : 

"  Twould  give  me  the  rheumatiz  and  so  it  would  you," 

which  is  about  the  size  of  it. 

All  parties  making  this  journey  require  an  escort.     We  had 

one,  and  it  consisted 


of  one  man.  He  was 
a  picturesque  looking 
rooster,  with  a  bur- 
nous or  cloak,  that 
may  have  been  new 
once,  though  I  doubt 
it,  and  he  kept  a  hand- 
kerchief tied  around 
his  forehead,  H  e 
would  have  been  of 
great  service  in  a 
fight ;  his  gun  was  of 
an  antiquated  pattern, 
and  when  he  tested  it 
in  camp,  he  snapped 
it  half  a  dozen  times 
before  it  would  go  off. 
He  was  an  inveterate 


A    FORMIDABLE    ESCORT. 


beggar  of  tobacco  for  cigarettes,  and  kept  two  of  us  reasonably 
busy  to  supply  him. 

He  took  a  great  fancy  to  my  tobacco  pouch,  and  tried  to  inti- 
mate that  I  should  give  it  to  him,  but  I  assumed  an  air  of  stu- 
pidity, and  couldn't  understand  him.     Twenty  times  in  the  course 


INSURING    AGAINST    ROBBERS.  415 

of  the  day  he  renewed  the  topic,  but  always  with  the  same  result, 
and  in  spite  of  all  his  signs,  I  would  not  comprehend.  Probably 
he  set  me  down  as  the  stupidest  idiot  he  had  ever  met,  and  my 
dullness  may  have  served  to  enliven  his  subsequent  stories  to  his 
friends.  He  got  after  the  "  Doubter,"  but  that  worthy  refused 
to  talk  with  him  as  soon  as  he  discovered  that  he  couldn't  talk, 
and  that  the  Bedouin  wanted  to  beg  something. 

The  region  between  Jerusalem  and  the  Jordan  and  Dead  Sea 
abounds  in  these  rascals.  They  are  shepherds  and  robbers,  ac- 
cording to  circumstances.  We  found  them  tending  their  flocks 
or  loafing  around  their  villages,  and  frequently  they  conversed 
with  our  escort.  Had  we  been  unaccompanied,  one  of  the  vil- 
lages that  we  passed  would  haye  signaled  to  another,  and  we 
should  have  been  plundered.  We  took  the  precaution  to  leave 
all  our  m.oney,  letters  of.  credit,  and  everything  of  that  sort,  ex- 
cept our  watches,  with  the  keeper  of  our  hotel  in  Jerusalem,  so 
that  we  would  not  have  been  a  very  valuable  prize,  but  at  the  same 
time  it  would  have  been  inconvenient  to  be  robbed. 

The  Sheik  of  the  tribe  liv^es  in  Jerusalem,  and  it  is  to  him  that 
travellers  look  for  protection. 

A  party  is  going  to  the  Dead  Sea  and  Jordan,  and  is  to  start 
to-morrow  by  way  of  Bethlehem  and  Mar  Saba.  The  dragoman 
notifies  the  Governor  of  Jerusalem,  and  the  Governor  notifies  the 
Sheik,  who  sends  an  escort  of  one,  two,  or  four,  or  it  may  be  a 
dozen  men.  And,  furthermore,  the  Sheik  comes  to  the  drago- 
man and  receivesfrom  him  five  francs  for  each  traveller,  as  a  sort 
of  insurance  tax. 

The  Sheik  is  thus  made  responsible  for  any  loss,  and  if  we  had 
been  robbed  while  in  the  hands  of  the  escort,  the  Governor 
would  have  made  the  Sheik  shell  out,  to  the  extent  of  our  loss. 
Not  long  before  our  visit,  a  traveller  under  escort  was  robbed  of 
two  thousand  francs  ;  his  loss  was  promptly  made  good  to  him  on 
his  return  to  Jerusalem.  All  travellers  in  the  Bedouin  country 
require  an  escort  from  the  tribe  of  each  region  they  pass  through, 
and  to  go  without  such  escort  would  be  madness. 

Suddenly,  while  we  were  winding  among  the  rough  hills,  we 
came  out  of  a  little  gorge,  and  gazed  upon  a  mass  of  rough,  bil- 
lowy hills,  spread  and  scattered  below  us,  and  looking  bare  and 


4l6  BATHING    IN    THE    DEAD    SEA. 

white  in  the  slanting  rays  of  a  December  sun.  To  the  left  lay  a 
plain,  somewhat  broken,  and  with  a  line  of  trees  winding  through 
it ;  this  was  the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  and  the  trees  marked  the 
course  of  the  stream.  To  the  right,  shimmering  and  glistening 
in  the  sunlight,  and  broken  at  its  edge  into  a  fringe  of  foam, 
raised  by  the  strong  south  wind,  that  was  then  blowing,  lay  the 
Dead  Sea — that  weird  waste  of  water  that  buries  the  cities  of  the 
plain.  Down,  down,  down,  winding  among  the  rocks  and  over 
little  stretches  of  plain  we  made  our  way  ;  the  hills  that  had  been 
below  rose  around,  and  we  rapidly  approached  the  level  of  the 
plain,  thirteen  hundred  feet  below  the  waters  of  the  Mediterra- 
nean. The  distance  was  deceptive,  and  we  were  a  long  time  in 
reaching  the  Dead  Sea.  , 

I  had  expected  to  find  a  scene  of  desolation,  as  some  writers 
have  said  that  no  fish  live  in  the  waters  of  the  Dead  Sea,  and  no 
plant  grows  near  it.  It  is  true  that  there  is  no  living  thing  in 
the  Dead  Sea  ;  the  fish  brought  into  it  by  the  Jordan  are  instant- 
ly killed  by  the  salt  water,  but  the  reeds  and  bushes  grow  as  near 
this  sea  as  they  are  ordinarily  found  near  the  ocean  or  any  of  its , 
arms.  I  found  some  within  a  hundred  feet  of  it,  and  they  seemed 
to  be  doing  well.  The  vegetation  is  quite  luxuriant  in  many 
places,  notwithstanding  the  apparent  lightness  of  the  soil. 

We  took  a  hasty  bath  in  the  Dead  Sea,  just  long  enough  to 
test  its  buoyant  qualities.  The  human  body  cannot  sink  in  the 
dense  water  ;  you  float  very  much  as  a  cork  floats  in  ordinary 
water,  and  speedily  lose  all  sense  of  danger  from  drowning.  The 
water  contains  twenty-six  per  cent,  of  salt,  and  is.  clear  as  the 
purest  spring  water.  There  is  a  wonderful  bitterness  in  it,  and 
a  few  drops  in  the  mouth  makes  you  feel  as  if  you  were  trying  to 
gulp  down  a  drug  store. 

After  you  have  been  a  short  time  in  the  Dead  Sea,  you  have  a 
prickly  sensation  all  over  the  body,  and  if  you  get  some  of  the 
water  in  your  eyes,  you  feel  anything  but  cheerful. 

When  we  came  out,  the  water  stuck  to  us  with  a  feeling  like 
molasses,  and  until  we  reached  the  Jordan  and  luxuriated  in  its 
fresh  water,  we  felt  as  sticky  as  so  many  postage  stamps. 

An  hour's  gallop  across  the  Jordan  plain  took  us  from  the 
Dead  Sea  to  the  Jordan,  which  we  reached  at  the  bathing  place 


A    RIVER    CROOKED    AS    VIRGINIA    FEN'CE.  419 

of  the  pilgrims.  The  water  was  of  a  dirty  yellow,  and  the  river 
was  not  more  than  eighty  or  a  hundred  feet  wide  ;  the  current  is 
quite  strong,  and  at  the  bathing  place  the  bed  is  covered  with 
rough  stones,  that  made  walking  unpleasant  to  our  bare  and  ten- 
der feet. 

Willow,  tamarisk,  and  balsam  trees  fringe  the  banks,  and  in  a 
little  grove  of  these  our  lunch  was  prepared,  while  those  of  us 
who  wanted  to  wash  off  the  salt  of  the  Dead  Sea  went  to  take  a 
bath  in  the  Jordan.  I  got  rid  of  the  sticky  sensation,  and 
emerged  from  the  Jordan  without  much  delay.  The  water  was 
altogether  too  cold  for  comfort. 

In  my  younger  days  I  thought  the  Jordan  was  something  like 
the  Mississippi,  my  impression  being  derived  from  the  old  hymn 
which  says  : 

"  On  Jordan's  stormy  banks  I  stand, 
And  cast  a  wistful  eye." 

Elsewhere  the  same  hymn  records  that : 

"  Sweet  fields  beyond  the  swelling  flood 
Stand  dressed  in  living  green." 

The  Stormy  banks  and  swelling  floods  led  me  to  imagine  that 
the  Jordan  was  a  mile  or  two  in  width,  and  with  waves  like  those 
of  the  ocean.  What  a  difference  between  the  imagination  and 
the  reality ! 

The  Jordan  is  one  of  the  most  tortuous  rivers  in  the  world  ;  a 
map  of  it  looks  like  a  line  of  Virginia  fence,  only  more  so,  and  I 
have  heard  somebody  say  that  the  Jordan  river  is  so  crooked  that 
you  can't  tell  half  the  time  which  side  you  are  on. 

An  hour  and  a  half  took  us  to  Riha,  better  known  as  the  site 
of  Gilgal,  and  by  some  said  to  be  the  place  where  Jericho  once 
stood.  It  is  now  a  miserable,  village,  one  of  the  most  forlorn  in 
Palestine  ;  and  the  principal  objects  that  we  saw  were  dirty  child- 
ren and  dirtier  adults,  who  all  begged  without  distinction  of  age 
or  sex,  for  "  backsheesh." 

I  attempted  to  take  a  sketch  of  a  group  of  them,  but  they 
were  evidently  ashamed  of  themselves,  and  ran  away. 

We  dined  well  and  retired  early  ;  it  rained  nearly  all  night, 
and  not  only  rained,  but  blew,  and  during  the  night  I  was 
wakened  by  the  cold,  wet  canvas  of  the  tent  coming  slap  in  my 


420 


THE    "doubter"    in    A    PICKLE. 


face.     I  dreamed  something  about  trying  to  swim  up  Niagara  in 
winter,  and  then  I  woke. 

We  called  the  dragoman  and  servants,  and  set  things  to  rights 
as  well  as  we  could, ^ — but  the  ground  was  so  soft,  that  the  tent 
pegs  wouldn't  hold  well.  We  were  a  forlorn  lot  in  the  morning, 
and  started  off  after  breakfast,  very  much  as  if  we  were  going  to 
our  own  funerals. 

The  stream  was  so  swollen  that  we  couldn't  ford  it  with  safety, 
and  so  we  went  up  a  mile  or  two  and  crossed  by  an  ancient  aque- 
duct, half  full  of  water.  The  horses  were  driven  through  the 
stream,  while  we  walked  or  were   carried   on  men's  backs  along 

the  aqueduct,  which  was 
a  foot  wide,  with  sides 
eighteen  inches  high, 
while  the  elevation  was 
about  fifty  feet  above 
the  torrent. 

I  removed  my  boots 
and  waded  over,  as  I 
thought  it  rather  ticklish 
to  be  carried.  The 
•'  Doubter"  was  half  way 
over,  when  his  bearer, 
who  knew  his  burden's 
views  on  the  "back- 
sheesh" question^ 
doubted  his  ability  to  carry  him  further.  The  "  Doubter," 
much  to  his  disgust,  was  put  down  where  the  water  of  the 
aqueduct  was  deepest,  and  had  to  pass  the  rest  of  the  day  with 
wet  feet. 

We  climbed  the  hills  along  the  way  to  Jerusalem,  and  at  sev- 
eral points  saw  the  remains  of  the  old  Roman  road.  The  route 
has  the  same  condition  of  safety  that  it  had  when  a  certain  man 
went  down  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho,  and  fell  among  thieves. 
Robberies  are  not  unfrequent,  and  the  treatment  of  the  victim 
is  the  same  as  it  was  eighteen  hundred  years  ago.  A  couple  of 
years  ago,  an  English  gentleman,  on  his  way  to  the  Jordan,  fell 
into  the  hands  of  the  Arabs,  close  to  the  ruined  Khan,  which  is 


THE  "  doubter's"    MISHAP. 


WASHING    IN    THE   JORDAN.  421 

said  to  be  the  site  of  tlie  inn  to  whicli  the  good  Samaritan  car- 
ried the  traveller  whom  he  found  by  the  wayside.  The  treat- 
ment of  this  Englishman  is  exactly  described  in  these  words  : 
"  They  stripped  him  of  his  raiment  and  wounded  him  and  de- 
parted, leaving  him  half  dead." 

While  in  the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  we  saw  no  other  traveller 
than  ourselves.  Had  we  happened  there  at  Easter  time,  we 
might  have  witnessed  an  interesting  spectacle. 

On  Monday  of  Passion  Week  occurs  the  ceremony  of  the 
bathing  of  the  Pilgrims.  The  devotees  gather  in  Jerusalem  to 
the  number  of  several  thousand,  some  of  them  having  come  hund- 
reds of  leagues  in  order  to  be  present  on  this  occasion.  In  a 
disorderly  array,  they  march  out  of  the  Holy  City  and  down  the 
road  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho.  The  Turkish  governor  of  Jeru- 
salem sends  an  escort,  under  command  of  an  officer,  to  protect 
the  pilgrims  from  robbers,  and  also  to  preserve  a  sort  of  disci- 
pline among  them,  and  prevent  overcrowding  and  loss  of  life,  at 
the  banks  of  the  Jordan.  A  camp,  or  rather  a  bivouac,  is  formed 
on  the  Plain  of  Gilgal,  and  long  before  daybreak  on  the  following 
morning,  the  whole  party  is  roused. 

The  scene  at  this  moment  is  said  to  be  wildly  picturesque,  and 
strikingly  similar  to  that  which  some  authorities  describe  as  pre- 
sented at  the  "  baptism  of  John." 

Tom-toms  are  beaten,  with  no  attempt  at  harmony,  and  thou- 
sands of  torches  flash  out  and  lighten  up  the  wide  space  covered 
by  the  bivouac.  In  a  few  moments  the  noise  is  hushed,  and  the 
torches  are  extinguished  ;  then  the  host  moves  in  silence  towards 
the  river,  to  the  spot  where  tradition  has  located  the  baptism  of 
our  Saviour. 

The  departure  from  the  bivouac  is  timed,  so  that  the  party 
shall  reach  the  bathing  place  about  dawn.  The  eastern  horizon 
displays  a  belt  of  light  that  reveals  the  sharp  outlines  of  the 
mountain  of  the  Land  of  Moab,  and  the  ruddy  tinge  increases  as 
the  Pilgrims  descend  into  the  fringe  of  foliage  that  masks  the 
banks  of  the  river.  At  the  broad  opening  that  marks  the  bathing 
place,  they  congregate  and  prepare  to  wash  in  Jordan. 

The  whole  river  is  speedily  filled  with  people  of  both  sexes 
and  all  ages  ;  the  bath  is  not  conducted  according  to  Occidental 


422  THE    "doubter"    AS    A    MUMMY, 

notions  of  etiquette.  Prayers  and  blessings  are  uttered,  and  all 
are  too  intent  upon  the  observance  of  their  religious  duty  to  pay 
any  heed  to  ideas  of  propriety. 

The  ceremony  ended,  the  multitude  returns  to  Jerusalem,  and 
reaches  the  city  about  sunset.  Many  stragglers  fall  out  by  the 
way,  and  sometimes  the  Turkish  escort  is  busy  for  two  or  three 
days,  bringing  in  the  last  of  them.  The  road  is  dreary,  and 
there  is  very  little  upon  it  to  keep  up  the  traveller's  interest.  We 
found  it  especially  so,  as  a  drizzling  rain  came  on  when  we  were 
about  half  way. 

We  passed  Bethany  and  wound  around  the  Mount  of  Olives, 
then  past  Gethsemane,  and  entered  Jerusalem  by  the  Bab-el- 
Asbat,  or  Gate  of  the  Tribes.  We  were  thoroughly  benumbed 
and  wet,  and  ill-natured  ;  and  when  our  horses  stopped  at  the 
door  of  the  hotel,  every  one  of  us  were  so  nearly  frozen  that 
we  had  to  be  assisted  to  dismount.  We  walked  as  so  many 
mummies  might  walk,  and  with  difficulty  dragged  ourselves  to 
our  rooms.  We  were  cold  and  wet  through,  and  not  one  of  us 
had  a  change  of  clothes,  all  our  heavy  baggage  being  at  Jaffa. 

What  should  we  do  .-' 

I  proposed,  going  to  bed,  although  it  was  two  P.  M.,  and  send- 
ing my  clothes  to  the  kitchen  to  dry,  and  I  was  not  long  in 
undressing. 

Everybody  else  did  the  same  ;  all  except  the  Judge,  who  was 
afraid  his  clothes  would  shrink  so  much  that  he  couldn't  get 
them  on  again.  He  didn't  relish  the  idea  of  going  naked  about 
Jerusalem  in  that  weather  and  riding  bareback  in  the  saddle  to 
Jaffa,  so  he  sat  on  the  stove  in  the  parlor  for  the  rest  of  the  day. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  we  received  our  clothes  from  the 
kitchen,  and  were  able  to  appear  presentable  at  dinner  time. 
But  we  all  had  a  wrung  out  appearance,  and  were  not  over 
amiable. 

The  "  Doubter  "  borrowed  a  pair  of  trowsers  from  one  of  the 
waiters.  They  were  very  tight  and  very  short,  and  made  the 
old  fellow  resemble  an  animated  mummy  or  the  materialized 
spirit  of  a  blacksmith's  tongs.  He  had  taken  cold,  and  his  teeth 
rattled  so  much  that  it  was  proposed  to  set  him  to  music,  and 
then  sell  him  as  a  pair  of  castanets. 


CHAPTER     XXXIII 


THE  HOLY  SEPULCHRE,   AND    SHRINE  OF  THE  CITY  OF  DAVID' 


A  Snow-Storm  in  Jerusalem — The  "  Doubter's  "  Opinion  of  Gum-Shoes — Kicked 
by  a  Vicious  Horse — An  Obliging  Moslem — A  Guard  of  Turks — Bloodthirsty 
Christians — An  Extraordinary  Shrine — The  Angel's  Seat — The  Quarrels  of  the 
Greek  and  Latin  Monks — A  Spot  of  Marvels — The  Soil  Pressed  by  the  Feet  of 
Christ — Strange  Traditions — The  Discovery  of  the  True  Cross — The  Spot  where 
Peter  Denied  his  Lord— The  Scene  of  the  Last  Supper — What  a  Wealthy  Jew 
Did — The  Man  who  was  his  own  Father — The  "Good  Thief" — Extracting  Six- 
pence from  the  "  Doubter" — A  Pertinacious  Guide — Trying  to  Elude  Pursuit — 
A  Claim  for  Damages — Loading  Up  with  Oranges — Talking  in  Four  Languages. 

AS  we  lay  in  bed  all  that  afternoon  at  Jerusalem,  the  snow 
continued  falling  and  the  wind  blew,  so  that  the  place  was 
anything  but  cheerful.  By  sundown  there  were  four  inches  of 
snow,  the  most — so  the  hotel-keeper  said — that  had  been  seen 
there  in  fifteen  years.  During  the  night  it  changed  to  rain,  and 
in  the  morning  the  streets  were  as  "  sloshy"  as  could  well  be 
imagined.  The  pool  of  Hezekiah,  just  back  of  the  hotel,  con- 
tained a  strange  mixture  of  snow,  ice,  and  water,  and  did  not 
accord  with  the  description  of  it  as  made  by  summer  visitors. 

When  I  looked  out  in  the  morning,  the  mingled  snow,  mud, 
and  water  that  filled  the  streets  brought  me  back  to  my  own  dear 
New  York,  and  I  fancied  that  I  was  once  more  on  Manhattan 
Island  in  a  January  thaw. 

The  snow  had  ceased,  but  it  was  raining  at  intervals,  and  very 
hard  when  it  did  rain.  We  sent  out  and  bought  some  gum  over- 
shoes, all  except  the  "  Doubter."  who  didn't  believe  gum-shoes 
were  good  for  anything,  especially  when  they  cost  so  much  as  in 
Jerusalem.     Furthermore,  the  "  Doubter"  had  incautiously  ven- 

(425) 


426 


FIGHTING    AT    CHRIST  S    TOMB. 


tured  too  near  the  hoofs  of  an  ill-mannered  horse,  and  had  been 
kicked  by  the  latter  to  such  an  extent  that  he  thought  best  to 
stay  in  his  room. 

We  started  out  to  visit  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  and 
again  found  it  closed.  The  different  sects  of  Christians  fight  so 
much  about  the  church  that  the  key  has  to  be  kept  by  Moslems, 
as  none  of  the  Christians  will  allow  the  rest  to  hold  it  ! 

We  held  two  or  three  consultations  with  as  many  sects  of 


POOL    OF    HEZEKIAH. 


monks,  and  at  last  found  that  an  order  from  the  Armenian  Patri- 
arch could,  at  that  hour,  procure  the  key  from  its  Moslem  holder, 
who,  on  the  promise  of  "  backsheesh,"  would  consent  to  obey  the 
request  to  open  the  church  for  us.  At  another  hour,  another 
patriarch  would  need  to  be  consulted. 

Two  of  us  started  with  our  dragoman,  and  with  some  rebuffs 
we  at  length  found  the  Armenian  Patriarch,  or  rather  his  secre- 
tary. He  sent  a  messenger  with  us  to  the  Moslem  key-holder, 
and  the  latter  worthy,  on  promise  of  three  francs,  consented  to 


A    TURKISH    GUARD. 


427 


abandon  his  pipe  and  accompany  us.  Thus  we  succeeded  in  get- 
ting the  church  open,  but  there  were  half  a  dozen  fellows  in  the 
way,  each  of  whom  wanted  "  backsheesh."  All  this  delay  and 
annoyance  comes  from  the  quarrels  of  the  Christians  and  their 
jealousy  of  one  another. 


WEST   DOOR,    CHUKCH    OF  THE    HOLY   SEPULCHRE. 

As  at  Bethlehem,  a  Turkish  guard  is  constantly  maintained  in 
the  church  where  Christ  is  buried,  to  '  prevent  His  disciples 
shedding  each  other's  blood  !  What  a  spectacle  is  presented  for 
the  contemplation  of  the  followers  of  Mohammed  !  No  wonder 
they  look  upon  Christians  with  contempt. 


^28  THE    HOLY    SEPULCHRE. 

The  ponderous  key  was  turned,  and  we  entered  the  church. 
The  door  was  closed  behind  us,  to  prevent  the  entrance  of  any 
person  not  belonging  to  our  party.  Immediately  in  front  of  the 
door  is  a  marble  slab,  set  in  the  pavement  and  inclosed  by  a  low 
railing  ;  this  is  called  the  Stone  of  Unction,  on  which  Christ's 
body  was  laid  to  be  anointed.  It  is  over  the  real  stone,  and 
completely  covers  it,  as  the  guide  explains,  to  prevent  the  latter 
being  broken  and  worn  by  the  numerous  pilgrims  that  visit  it. 

Further  off  is  the  spot  where  the  Virgin  Mary  stood  while  the 
body  of  Christ  lay  on  the  Stone  of  Unction,  and  further  on  to 
the  right  is  the  rotunda,  which  contains,  in  its  centre,  the  shrine 
after  which  the  church  is  named — The  Holy  Sepulchre. 

The  sepulchre  is  covered  by  a  small  building  twenty-six  feet 
by  eighteen,  of  a  style  of  architecture  impossible  to  describe  in 
writing.  There  is  an  entrance  by  a  low  door  in  the  east  end, 
and  this  brings  you  into  the  so-called  Chapel  of  the  Angel,  for 
the  reason  that  here  sat  the  angel  that  rolled  away  the  stone  from 
the  mouth  of  the  sepulchre.  A  fragment  of  the  stone  is  shown  ; 
the  Latin  monks  say,  however,  that  the  real  stone  was  stolen  by 
the  Armenians,  and  is  shown  by  them  in  the  Armenian  Chapel 
on  Mount  Zion. 

From  this  chapel  we  enter  the  sepulchre,  a  small  vault  about 
seven  feet  square,  and  having  on  one  side  the  sepulchral  couch, 
about  two  feet  high,  and  covered  with  marble  ;  in  fact,  everything 
is  of  marble  to  such  an  extent  that  no  part  of  the  original  rock 
can  be  seen,  and  it  is  hard  to  accept  the  assurances  that  the 
whole  tomb  is  carved  out  of  the  solid  rock.  The  couch  of  the 
sepulchre  is  used  as  an  altar,  and  is  carefully  portioned  off  among 
the  contending  sects.  I  presume  that  any  one  of  them  would 
prefer  to  see  the  church  and  its  contents  utterly  destroyed  rather 
than  any  one  of  the  others  should  obtain  possession  of  it. 
Quarrels  are  not  infrequent  in  the  church  over  the  right  of  pos- 
session or  service,  and  on  one  occasion  there  was  a  scuffle,  with 
a  good  deal  of  hair-pulling  and  rending  of  garments,  in  the 
sepulchre  itself,  between  a  Greek  and  a  Latin  monk.  The  Greek 
was  the  physical  superior,  and  came  off  victorious. 

To  enumerate,-  in  the  shape  of  an  itinerary,  all  the  places  we 
visited  in  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  would  be  to  make 


THE    THREE    CROSSES.  431 

a  tedious  narrative.  It  is  rather  curious  that  so  many  places 
have  been  found  in  the  small  space  covered  by  the  church  and 
its  annexes,  and  it  is  not  at  all  wonderful  that  many  Christians 
should  be  skeptical  on  the  subject.  There  has  been,  and  still  is, 
a  violent  discussion  as  to  the  genuineness  of  relics  and  local- 
ities, and  ponderous  volumes  have  been  written  on  both  sides. 

Tradition  and  history  assert  that  the  Romans  built  a  temple  to 
Venus,  on  the  hill  where  Christ  died,  and  that  a  marble  statue  of 
the  goddess  was  set  up  on  the  site  of  the  cross,  and  a  statue  of 
Jupiter  over  the  place  of  the  Resurrection.  In  the  fourth  cen- 
tury the  Emperor  Constantine  caused  a  removal  of  this  temple, 
and  the  erection  of  a  church  over  the  spot.  The  Empress 
Helena,  Constantine's  mother,  came  to  Palestine  to  search  for 
the  Cross  and  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  and  in  her  presence  the  dis- 
covery was  made. 

We  were  shown  the  chair  where  she  sat  during  the  removal  of 
the  earth  that  covered  the  True  Cross  and  the  crosses  of  the  two 
thieves.  According  to  the  tradition,  the  three  crosses  were  found 
side  by  side,  and  it  was  impossible  to  tell  which  was  the  true  one. 
A  woman,  sick  of  an  incurable  disease,  was  brought  and  laid 
upon  two  of  them,  without  any  effect ;  when  she  was  placed  on 
the  third,  she  rose  and  walked  away  in  perfect  health.  Of  course 
there  could  be  no  doubt  after  this,  and  the  cross  was  declared 
genuine.  It  must  have  been  of  goodly  size,  as  there  is  enough 
of  it  extant  in  churches  and  private  collections  to  build  a  steam- 
boat. 

Whatever  opinion  there  may  be  as  to  the  genuine  character  of 
the  relics  and  places  exhibited,  there  is  great  interest  attached 
to  the  spot,  and  the  time  spent  in  the  church  passes  very  rapidly. 
We  were  two  hours  in  the  church,  where  we  thought  we  had 
been  less  than  thirty  minutes ;  we  had  lingered  over  each  place 
whose  name  had  been  made  familiar  to  us  in  the  Scriptures,  and 
would  have  remained  longer  had  not  the  time  pressed  us.  Finally 
we  left  the  church  as  we  had  entered,  and  after  paying  our  guides 
the  necessary  "backsheesh,"  sent  them  away.  The  peddlers  and 
beggars  around  the  church  redoubled  their  efforts  and  appeals, 
and  kept  a  cordon  around  us  till  we  reached  the  street. 

From  the  Holy  Sepulchre  we  went  to  the  Palace  of  Caiphas, 
on  Mount  Zion,  which  is  in  the  hands  of  the  Armenians.  Ser- 
25 


432  A   PERSEVERING  JEW. 

vice  was  just  ending  in  the  church,  and  it  had  a  strange  appear- 
ance, in  consequence  of  the  Oriental  costumes  of  the  worshippers 
and  the  Oriental  manners  in  which  the  service  was  performed. 
We  were  shown  the  stone  that  covered  the  mouth  of  the  sepul- 
chre, the  spot  where  Peter  stood  when  he  denied  ever  having 
known  Christ,  and  the  rock  on  which  the  cock  stood  and  crowed 
at  the  time  of  Peter's  denial. 

They  also  showed  the  prison  where  Christ  was  confined,  so 
that  we  had  two  of  these  from  which  to  select,  the  other  being 
in  the  Church  of  the  Sepulchre. 

Further  along  on  Mount  Zion  we  went  to  the  Coenaculum,  or 
scene  of  the  Last  Supper.  The  building  is  in  the  hands  of  the 
Moslems,  and  one  of  them,  a  dirty  looking  Arab,  showed  us  up 
a  flight  of  stairs  and  into  the  "  supper  room,"  where  the  supper 
is  said  to  have  taken  place.  At  present  the  room  is  bare  and 
dirty,  and  occupied  by  Moslems,  who  lounged  around  and  begged 
for  "  backsheesh."  There  is  nothing  peculiar  about  its  architec- 
ture and  nothing  intrinsically  to  give  it  the  slightest  interest. 

Under  this  building,  Moslem,  Christian,  and  Jewish  traditions 
unite  in  locating  the  tomb  of  David,  and  also  that  of  Solomon 
and  other  kings.  The  Moslems  have  a  mosque  there,  and  will 
permit  no  one  to  enter  it  far  enough  to  reach  the  tomb.  Once 
in  a  great  while  a  special  favor  will  be  shown  to  a  Jew  by  a 
Mohammedan  friend,  and  he  can  get  a  slight  glimpse  of  the 
interior  ;  but  although  the  spot  is  particularly  venerated  by  the 
Jews,  the  government  will  not  open  it  to  them.  Several  attempts 
have  been  made  to  buy  the  place,  but  unsuccessfully. 

The  Latin  monks  once  had  possession  of  the  buildings,  but 
they  lost  it  through  bad  management.  A  wealthy  Jew  of  Con- 
stantinople was  in  Jerusalem,  and  asked  to  be  permitted  to  visit 
David's  tomb  and  say  his  prayers  there.  They  refused  this  very 
natural  and  reasonable  request,  and  the  Jew  went  off.  As  soon 
as  he  reached  Constantinople,  he  sought  an  interview  with  the 
Grand  Vizier,  and  induced  him  to  expel  the  Latin  monks  from 
the  building  that  covered  the  spot.  In  a  year  or  two  he  went 
back,  armed  with  the  necessary  firman,  that  enabled  him  to  say 
his  prayers  at  the  tomb  of  David,  and  thus  relieve  his  conscience 
of  any  burden  that  may  have  been  resting  upon  it  in  consequence 


"  COOL    SILOAM  S    SHADY    RILL. 


433 


o£  any  dubious  transaction  in  old  clothes,  or  in  exorbitant  inter- 
est for  money  he  might  have  loaned. 

Passing  out  from  the  Coenaculum  and  descending  to  the  Vale 
of  Hinnom,  we  can  visit  the  famous  Pool  of  Siloah  or  Siloam  ; 
and  a  walk  of  ten  minutes  or  more  further  along  the  valley,  will 


THE   FOUNTAIN    OF   THE   VIRGIN. 

bring  us  to  the  Fountain  of  the  Virgin.  Siloah's  Pool  is  a  basin 
or  reservoir,  about  fifty  feet  by  twenty,  and  not  far  from  six 
yards  deep.  There  is  an  underground  passage  between  this 
pool  and  the  Fountain  of  the  Virgin,  which  has  been  explored 
by  Dr.  Robinson  and  others,  and  found  to  be  very  tortuous,  and 


434  "hark!  from  the  tombs." 

so  small,  that  one  is  obliged  to  crawl  on  hands  and  knees  in  order 
to  pass  through  it. 

The  Fountain  of  the  Virgin  is  the  more  picturesque  of  the 
two.  It  is  at  the  bottom  of  an  artificial  cave,  and  the  stairway 
that  leads  down  to  the  water  has  given  it  the  name  by  which  it 
is  known  to  the  Arabs,  "  The  Fountain  of  the  Mother  of  Stairs," 
and  old  tradition  says  that  women  accused  of  adultery  were 
required  to  drink  of  the  water  from  this  fountain.  If  guilty, 
they  died  immediately  ;  but  if  innocent,  they  were  unhurt. 

A  remarkable  feature  of  this  fountain  is  the  irregular  flow  of 
the  water,  which  has  been  verified  by  many  persons.  Sometimes 
the  water  in  the  basin  will  rise  twelve  or  fifteen  inches  in  a  few 
minutes,  then  become  stationary,  and  in  five  or  ten  minutes 
more,  it  subsides  to  its  ordinary  depth.  In  some  seasons  this 
phenomenon  occurs  twice  or  thrice  daily,  while  at  other  times 
the  intermittent  periods  will  be  several  days  apart.  This  is 
doubtless  what  was  meant  in  the  New  Testament,  where  it  is 
said  "  an  angel  came  down  at  certain  seasons  and  troubled  the 
water."  The  local  belief  is,  that  there  is  a  dragon  in  the  foun- 
tain ;  the  water  flows  when  he  sleeps,  but  stops  when  he  is 
awake. 

From  the  Coenaculum  we  took  a  long  walk  to  the  tombs  of  the 
Kings — sepulchres  hewn  in  the  rock,  and  evidently  of  great 
antiquity.  They  have  accommodations  for  about  twenty  per- 
sons, but  are  rather  damp  and  uncomfortable. 

The  hills  all  around  Jerusalem  are  full  of  these  tombs,  cut  in 
the  solid  rock.  Most  of  them  have  a  legendary  history  that 
assigns  them  to  some  Biblical  character,  but  the  authenticity  of 
these  histories  is  extremely  doubtful. 

We  managed  to  extract  some  amusement  out  of  our  guide,  at 
Jerusalem,  (a  local  professional,  engaged  by  our  dragoman,)  but 
not  so  much  as  with  the  fellow  who  served  us  at  Athens.  He 
was  so  good  natured,  and  showed  so  much  readiness  to  do  any- 
thing we  wanted,  that  we  hadn't  the  heart  to  annoy  him  If  he 
had  been  less  amiable  he  would  have  been  much  more  to  our 
liking.  His  use  of  the  English  language  was  our  best  hold,  and 
his  conversation  rattled  on  with  an  utter  disregard  of  the  rela- 
tive positions  of  nouns  and  verbs. 


"doubter!  sixpence!"  435 

We  asked  how  long  he  had  been  guide  there,  and  he  responded, 
"  I  guide  have  been  thirty-four  years.  Before  I  was  guide  I  was 
my  father." 

Here  was  a  case  for  Darwin.  What  the  fellow  wanted  to  say 
was,  that  his  father  was  guide  before  him,  and  thinking  we  did 
not  fully  understand  him,  he  went  on  : 

"  Before  I  was  born,  I  was  guide  ten  years.  Before  my  father 
little  boy  was,  I  was  guide.  Before  I  was  old  man,  I  die  my 
father.  My  father  I  die  before  he  was  twelve  years.  I  was 
forty  years  before  my  father  was  born." 

The  mystery  increased,  and  the  more  he  explained  the  more 
he  got  things  mixed. 

In  the  church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  when  pointing  out  the 
historic  spots,  he  did  it  somewhat  in  this  wise  : 

"  Here  is  where  was  Jew  man  crucify  Christ.  He  was  two 
thief  with  him  crucify  ;  one  was  bad  thief  and  one  good  thief 
was.     Here  cross  was  for  good  thief." 

When  we  went  to  the  mosque  of  Omar  he  offered  to  supply 
us  with  slippers  for  a  sixpence  each,  and  those  of  us  who  had 
left  our  own  slippers  at  Jaffa  consented  at  once  to  the  arrange- 
ment. The  "  Doubter"  was  of  the  lot,  but  when  it  came  to  pay- 
ing, he  had  no  change  and  wanted  to  cheat  the  man  out  of  his 
due.  He  had  a  Turkish  coin  worth  about  a  penny,  and  told  the 
guide  he  must  take  that  or  nothing. 

While  the  "  Doubter's"  attention  was  taken  up  with  some- 
thing, we  told  the  guide  to  freeze  to  him  and  compel  him  to  pay. 
We  promised  to  support  him  in  his  efforts,  and  with  this  assur- 
ance he  went  ahead. 

He  came  up  from  behind  and  silently  placed  himself  at  the 
"  Doubter's "  side,  and  as  he  did  so,  extended  his  open  hand 
before  our  companion's  face.  He  suited  his  word  to  his  action, 
and  his  action  to  his  word,  by  saying  in  a  mild  tone : 

"  '  Doubter ' — sixpence." 

There  was  no  response.  Half  a  minute  later  the  request  was 
repeated  : 

"  '  Doubter ' — sixpence  ;  for  slippers,  sixpence." 

The  Turkish  penny  was  again  offered,  and  again  refused, 
with : 


436 


THE    GHOST    AT    THE    FIRESIDE. 


"  '  Doubter ' — sixpence." 

And  so  it  went  on  for  two  hours,  and  I  think  the  old  miser 
was  appealed  to  on  the  average,  about  once  a  minute.  When- 
ever the  guide  lagged  we  urged  him  forward,  and  as  he  had 
right  on  his   side  and   sixpence  in  his  eye,  he  worked  with  a 

will. 

In  vain  did  the  "  Doubter  "  order  him  away  and  appeal  to  the 
rest  of  us,  to  tell  the  guide  to  leave  We  made  no  interference, 
except  to  offer  to  lend  the  "  Doubter"  the  sixpence,  which  he 
declined.  The  "  Doubter  "  slammed  the  door  in  the  guide's  face, 
who  then  gave  up  the  pursuit. 


"  '  DOUBTER  ' — SIXPENCE." 

I  stopped  him  and  developed  a  new  plan.  The  guide  remained 
on  the  sidewalk,  in  front  of  the  hotel,  and  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
the  "Doubter"  opened  his  door,  peered  out  cautiously  to  see  that 
the  coast  was  clear,  and  then  took  his  way  to  the  parlor.  He 
seated  himself  before  the  fire,  and  I  gave  the  signal,  and  just 
as  he  remarked,  "  I'm  glad  that  awful  man  has  gone,"  the  guide 
slipped  in  like  the  ghost  of  Banquo  at  Macbeth's  feast.  Again 
he  extended  his  hand,  and  again  he  said  : 

"  '  Doubter ' — sixpence." 


AN    INDIAN    YELL.  437 

The  old  fellow  surrendered.  He  borrowed  a  sixpence  and  paid 
the  guide,  and  the  rest  of  us  gave  the  man  a  couple  of  francs  for 
his  persistence. 

There  was  nothing  now  for  us  to  do  but  to  leave  Jerusalem,  and 
the  next  morning  by  ten  o'clock  we  were  set  down  at  the  door  of 
the  hotel  at  Jaffa,  whence  we  had  started  nine  days  before.  We 
paid  oft  our  dragoman,  and  at  his  request  wrote  a  certificate,  set- 
ting forth  that  he  had  served  us  to  our  entire  satisfaction,  and 
that  we  were  as  contented  with  him  as  it  would  be  possible  to  be 
with  any  dragoman.  He  suited  us  all,  except  the  "  Doubter," 
who  wouldn't  have  been  satisfied  even  if  he  had  had  the  Sultan 
of  Turkey  for  a  dragoman.  He  tried  to  get  a  reduction  on  ac- 
count of  the  kicking  he  received  from  one  of  the  horses,  and  was 
much  chagrined  when  the  dragoman,  at  our  suggestion,  pretended 
to  misunderstand  him,  and  said  he  did  not  make  any  extra  charge 
for  things  of  that  kind. 

While  we  were  busy  talking  about  something  or  other,  the 
sharp  eyes  of  Madame  discovered  the  steamer,  and  we  gave  an 
Indian  yell  of  delight.  Our  baggage  was  ready,  and  soon  we  had 
it  on  the  shoulders  of  porters  and  were  off  for  the  landing. 

The  usual  "backsheesh"  took  us  through  the  Custom  House, and 
the  muscular  arms  of  Arab  boatmen  swung  us  out  of  the  little 
harbor  of  Jaffa  and  over  the  swelling  waves  of  the  Mediterranean. 
The  ship  was  a  full  mile  from  shore,  and  it  was  a  long  pull  and 
a  strong  pull  to  get  us  there.  On  board  we  found  we  were  the 
only  cabin  passengers,  and  could  have  all  the  after  part  of  the 
ship  to  ourselves. 

I  have  before  stated  that  Jaffa  is  celebrated  for  its  oranges,  which 
are  largely  exported.  As  soon  as  the  steamer  anchored  she  was 
surrounded  by  boats  loaded  with  boxes  and  baskets,  the  boxes 
being  made  with  open  sides  and  tops,  so  as  to  allow  a  free  circu- 
lation of  air.  The  boxes  and  baskets  were  hoisted  in  over  the 
ship's  side  amid  much  confusion  and  a  vast  amount  of  talk. 
Italian,  Russian,  Arabic,  and  Turkish  filled  the  air ;  everybody 
talked  at  once,  and  you  could  hardly  distinguish  one  sound  from 
another.  The  liveliest  scene  was  when  a  boat  was  emptied  and 
dropped  away,  and  another  came  in  to  take  its  place. 

There  would  be  half  a  dozen  boats  struggling  for  position,  and 
they  would  push  and  crowd  at  a  frightful  rate.     The  men  of  one 


438 


A    DECK-PASSAGE. 


boat  would  deliberately  push  another  boat  back  and  crowd  their 
own  in,  and  of  course  this  would  rouse  the  ire  of  the  ousted  ones- 
The  volleys  of  words  would  set  up  an  Arabic  dictionary.  I  don't 
know  whether  there  was  any  profanity  in  what  they  said,  but  I 
fancy  so.  Now  and  then  in  the  struggle  some  one  would  tumble 
into  the  water,  but  he  was  soon  up  again,  and  didn't  seem  to 
mind  the  wetting. 


JAFFA   ORANGE   SELLER. 

Deck  passengers  on  a  Levantine  steamer  generally  appropri- 
ate a  part  of  the  deck  that  suits  them,  and  stay  there  during  the 
voyage.  They  spread  their  carpets  and  blankets  where  they  find 
room  and  squat  by  day  and  sleep  by  night  on  the  spot  selected. 
Directly  in  front  of  the  after  cabin,  a  lot  of  deck  passengers  were 
thus  installed,  and  when  the  crate-like  boxes  and  the  canvas  cov- 
ered baskets  were  piled  near  and  around  them,  they  began  to  help 


ORANGE    THIEVES.  439 

themselves  to  oranges.  Two  fellows  that  were  camped  together 
would  work  in  partnership.  One  would  get  near  a  basket,  and 
would  work  cautiously  until  he  had  a  hole  large  enough,  then 
quietly  withdrawing  an  orange,  would  pass  it  to  his  pal,  who 
would  conceal  it  behind  his  baggy  breeches  and  flowing  robes. 
The  operation  would  go  on  until  a  peck  or  so  had  been  taken, 
when  another  freshly  arrived  basket  would  be  sought. 

Nine  o'clock  came,  and  we  were  still  at  the  same  work,  and  the 
decks  were  covered.  Finally  the  captain  said  that  no  more  could 
be  taken,  and  half  a  dozen  boats  were  sent  back  to  land  as  fully 
loaded  as  they  came.  Steam  began  to  blow  from  the  pipes,  in  a 
few  moments  the  screw  was  started,  the  anchor  rose  from  its  bed, 
and  we  were  under  way. 

Under  a  clear  night  sky  of  the  Mediterranean,  I  sat  on  deck 
watching  the  bright  stars  above,  the  glittering  waves  below,  and 
the  phosphorescent  gleaming  track  of  the  ship,  as  she  plowed 
through  the  waters.  The  twinkling  lamps  of  Jaffa  faded  into 
indistinctness  and  then  went  out,  and,  last  of  all,  the  staring 
light-house  sank  below  the  horizon  and  was  hid  from  sight. 

We  lost  sight  of  Palestine.  Our  winter  journey  in  the  Holy 
Land  was  a  thing  of  the  past,  to  be  a  pleasant  recollection  for  the 
future. 


CHAPTER     XXXIV. 

THE  LAND  OF  PHARAOH.— THROUGH  THE  EGYPTIAN    DESERT. 

In  Sight  of  Egypt — A  light-house  looming  through  the  fog — On  the  soil  of  the  Pha- 
raohs— An  invasion  of  boatmen — Scenes  in  the  streets  of  Port  Said — Encore  de 
"Backsheesh" — The  great  Suez  canal — Negotiations  with  a  cobbler — A  ludicrous 
situation — A  bootless  customer — Egyptian  jugglers — Going  through  the  Market — 
A  disagreeable  spectacle — A  pocket  steamer — Drinking  to  absent  friends — On  the 
"paging  canawl" — Sleeping  on  deck — A  sunrise  in  the  desert — On  the  summit  of 
the  Isthmus — An  onslaught  by  Arab-baggage-smashers. 


4  4  'THHERE  it  is  !     There  is  the  light-house  !" 

J[  Half  a  dozen  of  us  looked  in  the  direction  indicated,  and 
saw  a  tall  column  that  rose  apparently  out  of  the  sea,  as  the  fog 
and  distance  did  not  reveal  the  low  coast  of  Egypt,  nor  the  long 
jetty  that  has  been  thrown  out  to  form  a  harbor. 

The  steamer  moved  steadily  onward,  and  in  a  little  while  there 
was  a  fringe  of  houses,  and  then  a  fringe  of  masts,  then  a  long 
line,  lighter  than  the  sea  in  its  color,  swept  away  on  either  hand 
to  mark  the  coast.  In  its  center  appeared  the  jetties,  that  form 
the  outer  harbor  of  Port  Said.  A  small  steamer  came  out  to 
meet  us,  and  from  her  a  pilot  came  on  board,  to  direct  us  between 
the  jetties  and  into  the  inner  harbor. 

These  jetties,  or  moles,  are  of  artificial  stone,  two-thirds  sand, 
and  one-third  hydraulic  lime,  mixed  in  a  frame  and  allowed  to 
harden.  Each  block  weighs  twenty-two  tons,  and  contains  about 
three  hundred  and  twenty-four  cubic  feet.  The  blocks  are  not 
piled  regularly  to  form  a  well  built  wall,  but  are  dropped  in,  hig- 
gedly-piggedly,  like  a  lot  of  bricks  dumped  from  a  cart.     This 

(440) 


A    CITY    OX    A    SAND-BAR.  44I 

has  been  found  to  be  the  best  form  of  sea  wall,  as  it  breaks  the 
force  of  the  waves  more  completely  than  would  a  structure  with 
a  smooth  front.  The  sand  has  settled  in  and  filled  up  the  cavi- 
ties below  the  water  line ;  at  first  it  silted  through,  but  an  occa- 
sional use  of  the  dredge  kept  the  harbor  in  proper  condition. 

The  lighthouse  is  a  magnificent  structure  of  concrete,  one  hun- 
dred and  sixty  feet  high,  supporting  a  lantern  twenty  feet  high, 
and  flashing  every  three  seconds  with  such  intensity,  as  to  be 
visible  twenty  miles.  Three  other  lighthouses  of  similar  con- 
struction have  been  placed  in  the  interval — one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  miles — between  Port  Said  and  Alexandria. 

The  steamer  entered  the  harbor,  and  before  her  anchor  was 
down,  her  decks  were  invaded  by  the  usual  swarms  of  boatmen, 
on  the  lookout  for  a  job.  We  were  almost  within  jumping  dis- 
tance of  the  shore,  and  had  we  possessed  the  strength  and  activ- 
ity of  fleas,  in  proportion  to  our  size,  we  should  have  made  short 
work  of  going  ashore.  Not  being  thus  gifted,  we  made  the  usual 
bargain  for  transportation  to  the  land,  and  from  the  shore,  through 
the  Custom  House,  to  the  hotel. 

The  customary  "  backsheesh"  of  two  francs  saved  us  from  an 
inspection  of  our  baggage,  and  we  were  soon  at  the  hotel.  I 
cannot  speak  very  highly  of  this  establishment  ;  there  are  two 
hotels  that  keep  up  a  warm  rivalry,  and  are  first-class  iii  their 
prices,  if  in  nothing  else.  Whichever  hotel  you  patronize  on 
visiting  Port  Said,  you  will  wish  you  had  gone  to  the  other. 

Port  Said  is  modern  ;  it  was  founded  in  1859,  '^'^^1  owes  its  ex- 
istence to  the  construction  of  the  Suez  Canal.  Previous  to  that 
time,  there  was  no  town  there,  and  not  even  a  single  house. 
Early  in  April,  a  small  body  of  laborers  landed  there,  and  on  the 
25th  of  that  month,  M.  de  Lesseps,  the  projector  of  the  canal,  in 
the  presence  of  a  dozen  Europeans  and  six  or  eight  times  that 
number  of  natives,  removed  the  first  spadeful  of  earth  in  the 
great  enterprise,  that  was  to  open  a  water  way  from  the  Mediter- 
ranean to  the  Red  Sea.  A  few  huts  had  been  erected  on  the 
site  of  the  present  city,  which  was  named  Port  Said  in  honor  of 
the  then  Viceroy. 

The  spot  was  not  an  attractive  one,  nothing  but  a  strip  of  sand 
without  vegetation,  and  without  a  drop  of  fresh  water.     As  the 


442  A    BOOTLESS    TRAVELLER. 

works  of  the  canal  progressed,  the  town  grew  and  presented  a 
scene  of  great  activity.  It  was  said  to  be  at  one  time  the  largest 
workshop  in  the  world.  It  has  lost  this  character  since  the  ca- 
nal was  completed,  but  is  still  a  city  of  eight  or  ten  thousand  in- 
habitants, regularly  laid  out  in  streets  and  squares,  and  boasting 
a  pretty  and  luxuriant  garden. 

There  is  considerable  activity  in  the  streets,  and  the  numer- 
ous shops,  stores,  churches,  hotels,  mosques,  and  the  like  give  it 
a  permanent  and  not  unpleasing  appearance.  The  business  is 
all  more  or  less  connected  with  the  canal,  and  will  doubtless 
increase  as  the  business  of  the  great  water-way  increases. 

It  does  not  take  long  to  make  a  tourist's  survey  of  a  modern 
town  in  the  land  of  antiquities,  where  nothing  is  considered  old 
that  does  not  date  further  back  than  the  Christian  era.  Where 
you  count  centuries  by  the  score,  you  will  not  pay  much  atten- 
tion to  a  decade,  and  grow  enthusiastic  over  works  where  the 
mortar  has  scarcely  settled,  and  paint,  if  there  be  any,  is 
still  wet. 

Our  first  effort  in  Port  Said  was  to  ascertain  when  we  could 
leave  it,  and  we  found  that  this  could  not  be  done  before  mid- 
night. We  could  go  on  a  small  steamer  as  far  as  Ismailia  and 
thence  by  rail  to  Cairo,  and  if  we  wished  to  take  a  detour  to  Suez, 
there  was  no  law  to  prevent  our  going  there. 

We  sauntered  around  the  city  ;  some  of  our  party  had  their 
hair  cut,  some  ate  pastry  in  a  cafe,  some  resorted  to  a  beer  gar- 
den in  front  of  the  hotel,  and  one,  (myself,)  took  a  seat  by  the 
side  of  a  cobbler,  whose  stall  was  in  the  open  air,  while  he 
mended  one  of  my  boots.  Half  a  dozen  Arabs  stood  around  to 
look  at  me,  as  I  crossed  the  bootless  leg  over  the  booted  one  and 
endeavored  to  appear  pleased. 

The  cobbler  had  about  half  finished  the  job,  when  he  suddenly 
remembered  that  he  must  go  to  dinner.  To  this  I  objected  until 
my  boot  was  done.  I  had  no  wish  to  sit  there  while  he  dined, 
and  possibly  took  an  after-dinner  nap  of  an  hour  or  so,  and  after 
a  slight  wrangle  I  succeeded  in  convincing  him  that  he  had  bet- 
ter finish  the  job  before  doing  anything  else. 

The  Arab  portion  of  Port  Said  is  quite  distinct  from  the 
Frank  quarter,  and  is  separated  from  it  by  a  marsh,  that  can  be 


EGYPTIAN    JUGGLERS.  443 

crossed  over  a  rickety  bridge  or  circumambulated  by  following 
the  sea  shore. 

We  took  a  stroll  there  in  the  latter  part  of  the  afternoon,  and 
found  crowds  of  natives  surrounding  a  few  jugglers  and  mounte- 
banks, whose  tricks  were  by  no  means  extraordinary.  I  had  a 
lot  of  Turkish  coppers,  which  I  had  brought  from  Syria,  and 
found  altogether  uncurrent  here.  To  get  rid  of  the  coins  I 
threw  some  to  the  jugglers  and  to  a  few  beggars.  None  of  them 
appeared  to'be  pleased  to  receive  this  money,  and  evidently  they 
had  been  served  the  same  trick  by  previous  travellers. 

There  was  a  part  of  the  market  where  fish  and  vegetables 
were  offered  for  sale,  the  venders  having  little  stands  about  the 
size  of  dressing-tables,  and  not  particularly  clean  or  attractive. 
There  were  two  or  three  restaurants  where  fried  fish  was  wait- 
ing to  be  devoured,  the  restaurant, — cuisine  and  all, — occupying 
a  space  not  more  than  eight  feet  square.  Many  of  the  natives 
were  suffering  from  ophthalmia,  and  on  the  eyes  of  some  of  the 
children  there  were  masses  of  flies  eating  away  the  oozing  mat- 
ter and  forming  a  disgusting  spectacle  I  should  say  that  one 
in  twenty  of  those  I  saw  there  were  blind  of  an  eye,  and  one  in 
fifty  was  altogether  bereft  of  sight. 

We  dined  at  the  hotel  and  then  slept  until  nearly  eleven 
o'clock,  as  we  knew  there  would  be  no  sleeping  accommodations 
on  the  boat.  It  was  New  Year's  Eve,  and  some  of  the  party 
proposed  to  celebrate  the  New  Year,  which  would  come  in  as  we 
left  Port  Said,  so  we  took  a  couple  of  bottles  of  champagne  and 
some  glasses  to  the  steamer. 

It  was  about  half-past  eleven,  when  we  left  the  hotel,  and  fol- 
lowed our  baggage  on  the  backs  of  the  Arab  porters  to  the 
landing. 

The  boat  was  an  insignificant  affair,  carrying  the  mail  and 
having  room  for  very  little  else.  The  cabin  was  not  far  from 
seven  feet  by  twelve  ;  there  were  seats  for  about  sixteen  persons, 
and  there  was  a  small  table  in  the  centre,  which  was  speedily 
piled  up  with  baggage.  Two  or  three  native  officials  were  there 
when  we  arrived,  and  they  had  done  what  we  should  have  done 
had  we  been  first.  They  had  taken  the  best  places,  and  were 
comfortably   settled    into   the    corners.     As   the   clock   struck 


444  SLEEPING    ON    DECK. 

twelve,  the  ships  in  the  harbor  fired  sakites  and  let  off  fireworks, 
and  quite  a  quantity  of  rockets  went  up  from  the  shore.  We 
opene-d  our  champagne,  and  each  drained  a  glass  to  friends  at 
home,  and  a  wi-sh  that  the  end  of  the  year  might  be  as  propitious 
as  its  commencement. 

Our  steamer  blew  her  whistle  and  swung  out  from  the  wharf, 
and  in  a  few  minutes  we  had  passed  out  of  the  basin  and  were 
in  the  canal. 

Straight  as  a  sun-beam  the  canal  pushes  away~from  the  sea 
coast,  and  then  through  the  low  desert.  For  nearly  thirty  miles 
it  has  no  curve,  but  is  as  direct  as  it  is  possible  for  the  engineer 
to  lay  it  out.  The  banks  were  not  very  high  in  this  part,  as 
there  was  not  a  large  quantity  of  earth  to  be  dredged  out,  and 
from  the  deck  of  a  large  steamer  one  can  look  over  a  wide  extent 
of  marshy  lake  and  swamp. 

As  we  were  scarcely  a  foot  above  the  water  and  in  a  small 
steam  launch,  we  could  not  look  over  the  bank,  and  were  obliged 
to  content  ourselves  with  the  contemplation  of  the  sloping  sides 
of  the  canal.  They  were  very  monotonous,  even  with  the  poetic 
addition  of  a  full  moon  and  clear  sky.  The  night  went  on  and 
so  did  we,  but  I  fancy  the  night  had  much  the  best  time  of  it. 
We  could  not  lie  down,  and  there  was  hardly  room  for  us  to  sit 
inside.  I  secured  a  camp  stool  and  got  outside,  making  the  end 
of  the  cabin  serve  as  a  rest  for  my  back.  Wrapped  in  my 
overcoat  and  plaid,  I  managed  to  keep  warm,  though  with  some 
difficulty,  and  after  a  time  I  felt  sleepy,  but  dared  not  risk  going 
to  sleep  there,  through  fear  that  I  should  fall  overboard. 

Then  I  sat  down,  or  rather  reclined  on  deck,  and,  making  a 
pillow  erf  an  anchor,  managed  to  get  along  comfortably.  Every 
time  I  waked  and  looked  out  we  were  steaming  along  through 
the  canal  with  the  same  interminable  stretch  of  sand  on  either 
side.  By-and-by  there  was  a  blush  of  light  in  the  east,  then 
there  was  daybreak  and  then  there  came  sunrise. 

We  grew  better  natured  as  we  thawed  out  under  the  welcome 
rays  of  the  sun,  and  felt  the  dryness  vanishing  from  our  lips, 
and  a  gradual  disappearance  of  that  general  feeling  of  mussiness 
that  you  have  after  sitting  up  all  night.  The  sands  became 
warm  in  the  glow  of  the  morning,  and  everything  that  before 
had  been  sombre  was  now  brilliant  with  flashing  light. 


A    RAVENOUS    CROWD.  445 

I  do  not  often  see  the  sun  come  up  in  these  later  years,  never 
when  I  can  avoid  doing  so ;  but  whenever  I  am  caught  with  a 
sunrise  on  my  hands,  I  think  it  is  about  the  best  thing  out.  A 
sunrise  in  the  desert  is  rather  an  extra  affair,  and  considerably 
"lays  over"  the  ordinary  one  that  we  can  see  at  home  by  staying 
up  till  the  next  day. 

We  touched  the  dock  at  Ismailia  in  little  more  than  seven 
hours  from  Port  Said,  and  were  glad  enough  to  get  on  shore. 
A  crowd  of  Arabs  at  the  landing  was  as  ravenous  as  a  lot  of 
young  tigers  ;  we  tried  to  keep  them  back  with  words  and  ges- 
tures, but  to  no  purpose  ;  they  seized  our  baggage,  and  would  not 
put  it  down  till  we  laid  about  them  with  our  canes. 

There  were  a  hundred  of  them,  all  vociferating  and  snatching 
for  baggage  at  the  same  instant ;  and  I  flatter  myself  that  it  was 
a  triumph  of  genius  over  muscle  when  we  succeeded  in  putting 
that  baggage  in  a  pile  and  making  the  fellows  stand  back,  and 
tender  proposals  for  its  transport  to  the  railway  station  We 
let  the  contract  to  the  lowest  bidder,  who  took  the  lot  at  four 
francs.  The  instant  the  bargain  was  closed,  he  and  half  the 
crowd  fell  upon  the  pile  as  if  they  had  been  wild  beasts,  and  it 
disappeared  like  a  pint  of  whiskey  among  a  dozen  backwoods- 
men. At  the  station,  after  we  had  paid  the  money  agreed  upon, 
they  had  an  awful  row  dividing  it,  and  there  seemed  to  be  at  one 
time  a  brilliant  prospect  of  a  homicide. 

The  history  of  the  Suez  canal  enterprise  was  given  to  the 
world  with  great  minuteness  of  detail,  at  the  time  of  its  open- 
ing in  1869,  and  I  shall  not  attempt  a  description  of  it  here. 


CHAPTER    XXXV. 


IN  AND   AROUND   THE   CITY  OF  THE   CALIPHS. 

A  Costly  Breakfast— Ismailia— The  Palace  of  the  Khedive— On  an  Egyptian  Rail- 
road Train— Rolling  Through  the  Desert— The  Delta  of  the  Nile,  What  Is  It  ? 
—The  Garden  of  Egypt— Cairo— The  Mighty  Pyramids— Life  at  an  Egyptian 
Hotel— Sights  of  the  Capital— Cairo  of  To-Day— Occidental  Progress  and  Orien- 
tal Conservatism— Burglaries  and  Other  Modern  Improvements— Cosmopolitan 
Costumes— A  Harem  Taking  an  Airing— A  Daring  Robber}-- The  Battle-Field 
of  the  Pyramids— Slaughter  of  the  Mamelukes— Singular  Escape  of  Emir  Bey. 

WE  breakfasted  at  the  only  hotel  in  Ismailia,  paying  a  fright- 
fully high  price  for  the  meal,  and  then  we  hastened  to  the 
railway  station  to  take  the  train  to  Cairo.  We  had  no  time  to 
look  about  the  town,  but  the  little  we  saw  was  pleasing.  The 
houses  were  embowered  in  trees,  and  there  were  pretty  gardens 
here  and  there,  some  of  them  very  tastefully  arranged.  There 
was  a  broad  avenue  from  the  landing  place  to  the  railway  station, 
and  there  is  a  well-built  quay,  more  than  a  mile  long. 

The  Khedive  has  a  palace  here  that  looks,  from  a  distance,  like 
a  comfortable  and  cozy  residence,  and  there  has  lately  sprung  up 
a  sea-bathing  establishment  on  the  shores  of  the  lake.  Port 
Said  and  Ismailia  are  the  urban  results  of  the  canal  ;  the  former 
is  practical  and  the  latter  is  both  practical  and  beautiful. 

We  waited  at  the  station  nearly  an  hour,  the  train  being  some- 
what late  in  coming  from  Suez.  Finally  it  appeared  and  we  en- 
tered it.  The  coaches  were  not  attractive  in  the  way  of  clean- 
liness and  comfort,  and  we  were  rather  more  crowded  than  we 
liked  to  be. 

(446) 


IN    SIGHT    OF    THE    PYRAMIDS. 


447 


We  moved  off  at  a  dignified  pace,  along  the  banks  of  the 
Sweetwater  Canal,  and  with  the  desert  stretching  out  around  us. 

There  is  very  little  to  be  seen  on  the  railway  journey  from 
Ismailia  to  Cairo.  Part  of  the  way  we  were  in  the  desert,  and  a 
part  of  the  way  we  skirted  the  rich  delta  of  the  Nile.  We  passed 
towns  and  villages  in  great  number,  and  saw  fields  bright  with 
verdure,  although  it  was  midwinter.  Men  were  at  work  in  the 
fields,  with  no  abundance  of  clothing,  and  half-naked  children 
were   playing   out-  ^;^ 

of-doors     as     they  _  ^    ^^ 

might  play  in  New 
York  in  August. 

We  made  brief 
stoppages  at  half  a 
dozen  stations,  pos- 
sibly at  double  that 
number,  as  I  kept 
no  reckoning,  and 
about  six  hours 
after  leaving  Is- 
mailia we  saw  the 
Pyramids  sharply 
outlined  against  the 
western  sky,  w^here 
the  sun  was  setting, 
as  they  have  stood 
outlined  for  more 
than  forty  centu- 
ries ;  and  as  dusk 
had  fallen  and  dark- 
ness was  gathering  around  us,  we  rolled  into  the  station  at 
Cairo,  and  were  speedily  in  the  midst  of  a  noisy  crowd  of  the 
usual  attendance  upon  arriving  trains.  Soon  we  ran  all  the 
gauntlets  of  the  station  and  its  surroundings,  and  Vv-cre  quar- 
tered in  the  comfortable  Hotel  du  Nil. 

It  was  after  six  o'clock  in  the  evening  when   we   reached  the 
hotel,  and  we  had  just  time  to  prepare  for  dinner  when  the  bell 
announced  that  the  meal  was  ready.     It  was  the  first  of  January, 
26 


WATER-BEARERS   AT   THE    RAILWAY   STATION,    CAIRO. 


448 


VIEWS     OF    CAIRO. 


and  the  proprietor  stood  treat  on  the  occasion,  everybody  being 
liberally  supplied  with  champagne.  The  hotel  seemed  to  promise 
well,  and  we  went  to  bed  contented  and  happy. 

Twenty  years  ago  or  more,  Cairo  was  far  more  Oriental  than 
it  is  to-day.  There  was  no  railway  in  Egypt,  and  travellers  were 
not  numerous.  The  few  that  came  here  were  not  sufficient  to 
make  much  impression  on  the  manners  and  habits  of  the  people. 

The  foreign  population  was  small, 
and  left  nearly  everything  in  the 
hands  of  the  natives,  and  the  for- 
iegners  in  the  service  of  the  gov- 
ernment were  few  and  far  between, 
and  generally  in  irresponsible  posi- 
tions. Mainteiiant  on  a  change  tout 
tela. 

Egypt  has  her  network  of  rail- 
ways and  her  maritime  canal ;  she 
has  telegraphs,  she  has  steamboats, 
she  has  a  navy,  armed  with  rifled 
cannon,  she  has  an  army,  many  of 
whose  officers  have  come  from 
other  lands,  and  whose  soldiers 
are  suppUed  with  breech-loading 
guns  of  the  most  approved  patterns. 
The  foreign  quarter  of  Cairo  con- 
tains inhabitants  from  all  parts  of 
Europe,  and  they  can  be  counted 
by  the  thousand.  The  city  can 
boast  of  parks  and  gardens  of  great 
beauty ;  tall  buildings  of  stone 
rise  above  the  humble  edifices  of  Arab  architecture,  and  there 
are  wide  streets  and  boulevards,  where  the  smooth  pavement 
supports  the  wheels  of  elegant  carriages  of  European  manufac- 
ture, drawn  by  horses  of  great  beauty  and  value. 

The  costume  of  the  Occident  mingles  with  that  of  the  Orient ; 
the  Frank  jostles  against  the  native  ;  the  church  rises  in  sight  of 
the  mosque  ;  and  the  sound  of  Christian  worship  mingles  with 
the  voice  of  the  Muezzin  as  he  chants  in  the  minaret  the  call 


PRAYING  IN  THE  STREETS  OF  CAIRO. 


GLIMPSES    OF    A    HAREM.  451 

for  the  faithful  to  assemble  at  prayer.  You  may  see  a  group  of 
women,  closely  veiled  and  mounted  on  donkeys,  under  the  escort 
of  a  tall  eunuch,  whose  features  and  complexion  mark  his  Nubian 
origin.  It  is  the  harem  of  a  Moslem  out  for  an  airing,  and  you 
may  seek  in  vain  to  penetrate  the  veils  that  cover  the  faces  of 
the  fair  riders.  Their  baggy  dresses  are  puffed  out  like  balloons, 
as  the  breeze  blows  against  them,  and  they  are  as  much  Oriental 
as  though  they  had  stepped  from  the  pages  of  the  Arabian 
Nights. 

The  next  minute  there  comes  before  you  a  handsome  carriage, 
drawn  by  a  pair  of  high-stepping  horses,  and  containing  a  beau- 
tiful woman  dressed  in  all  the  taste  and  elegance  of  Paris  or 
New  York.  It  is  the  wife,  perhaps,  of  a  resident  foreigner,  and 
you  may  see  many  carriages  and  many  occupants  in  the  course 
of  your  promenade.  The  procession  on  the  donkeys  makes  way 
for  the  vehicle,  and  halts  until  it  passes.  Thus  the  customs  of 
the  Occident  are  invading  the  once  dull  and  listless  East. 

Cairo  has  grown  rapidly  in  wealth  and  importance  in  the  past 
score  of  years,  particularly  in  the  last  decade.  The  Moslem  is  no 
longer  supreme  in  commerce  as  of  yore,  and  finds  it  useless  to 
sit  idly  and  wait  for  a  customer,  as  once  was  his  wont.  The 
bustling  habit  of  the  European  is  becoming  engrafted  upon  the 
country,  and  the  railway  and  telegraph  are  teaching  to  the  people 
the  value  of  time  and  the  disadvantages  of  the  old  modes  of 
locomotion.  Builders  are  busy  in  Cairo,  and  large  edifices,  on 
the  plan  of  Paris,  are  completed,  or  in  the  process  of  erection. 

The  new  part  of  Cairo  can  boast  of  straight  avenues,  with 
lines  of  shade  trees  and  with  rows  of  well-built  houses,  from 
whose  windows  peep  out  women,  whose  unveiled  faces  show  they 
are  not  of  Moslem  faith.  While  I  was  in  Egypt,  a  gentleman 
arrived  there  after  an  absence  of  more  than  twenty  years.  He 
told  me  he  could  not  recognize  that  part  of  Cairo  beyond  the 
Ezbekieh  gardens.  All  was  changed,  and  where  once  were  open 
fields  or  waste  places,  there  are  now  the  streets  and  avenues  of  a 
city. 

There  is  a  handsome  bridge  of  iron  across  the  Nile,  and  there 
is  a  broad  and  well-built  carriage-road  from  Cairo  to  the  foot  of 
the  great  Pyramids   at  Gizeh.     Steamboats  are  plying  on  the 


452 


CRACKING    A    CRIB. 


river,  and  factories  rear  their  tall  chimneys  on  the  land.  Rows 
and  rows  of  shops  are  conducted  by  foreign  capital  and  tended 
by  foreign  men.  The  streets  are  lighted  with  gas,  and  it  is  pro- 
posed to  provide  them  with  wooden  pavement,  like  that  which 
has  found  favor  in  many  American  cities.  The  post-office  is 
efficiently  managed,  and  so  is  the  police — both  of  them  on  the 
European  model. 

The  temperance  of  the  Orient  may  prevail  among  the  original 
inhabitants,  but  the  foreigners  manage  to  get  drunk  with  as 
much  freedom  as  they  would  at  home,  and  likewise  to  be  arrested 
and  fined.  And  so  many  Christians  have  found  their  way  there, 
that  crime  can  be  no  longer  suppressed. 

While  I  was  in  Cairo  there  was  a  burglary  that  would  have 
done  honor  to  London  or  New  York.  A  jewelry  establishment 
was  entered  at  night,  and  property  to  the  value  of  six  thousand 
pounds  sterling  was  taken.  The  robbers  entered  by  breaking  a 
hole  in  a  side  wall,  and  they  took  away  everything,  except  a  quantity 
of  clocks,  that  were  evidently  too  cumbersome.  Not  a  watch,  not 
a  piece  of  jewelry  of  any  kind  was  left  behind,  and  the  fellows 
got  clean  away.     Does  not  this  sound  like  civilization  ? 

Polygamy  is  growing  unpopular,  and  the  natives  are  becoming 
content  to  live  with  one  wife  each,  according  to  the  Western  custom. 
And,  still  following  the  Western  custom,  they  abuse  her,  and  stay 
out  late  of  nights,  at  the  club  or  the  theatre,  or  somewhere  else, 
and  are  not  over  liberal  in  supplying  her  pecuniary  wants. 
Slavery  is  not  altogether  suppressed,  but  is  greatly  restricted, 
and  has  no  legal  protection.  Gambling  houses  abound,  not  only 
for  native,  but  for  foreign  patronage,  and  to  judge  by  the  number 
of  these  places,  the  foreigners  that  come  here  are  fond  of  com- 
bats with  the  tiger. 

I  might  name  many  other  indications  of  the  change  that  has 
come  over  Egypt,  but  the  foregoing  must  suffice. 

One  of  our  first  excursions  was  to  the  Citadel.  Its  character 
is  shown  by  its  name  ;  it  was  built  in  1 166,  by  Saladin,  as  a  de- 
fence to  the  city,  but  the  site  was  rather  unwisely  selected,  as  it 
is  dominated  by  the  Mokattam — a  hill  directly  behind  it — and 
has  once  been  taken  by  batteries,  stationed  on  the  latter  emi- 
nence.    It  is  strong  enough  to  resist  an  attack  by  small  arms, 


LOOKING    FROM    THE    CITADEL.  453 

and  some  of  its  towers  are  quite  massive  and  picturesque.  It  is 
quite  extensive,  and  contains  a  palace  and  a  mosque,  the  latter 
built  almost  entirely  of  alabaster.  The  interior  of  the  mosque  is 
particularly  rich,  in  consequence  of  the  material  used  in  its  con- 
struction, and  the  arches  have  a  curious  effect,  quite  impossible 
to  describe  in  v^riting.  The  palace  also  abounds  in  the  same  ma- 
terial, and  contains  some  very  handsome  rooms. 

But  the  great  charm  of  the  citadel  is  the  view  from  the  plat- 
form. One  can  look  upon  the  Nile  and  a  portion  of  its  rich  val- 
ley, and  on  nearly  the  whole  city  of  Cairo.  The  roofs  of  the 
houses  are  below  the  feet  of  the  observer,  and  there  are  only  the 
highest  minarets  of  the  mosques  to  approach  him  in  elevation. 
In  the  west  are  the  Pyramids,  standing  in  the  edge  of  the  desert, 
and  looking  more  grand  than  when  one  sees  them  from  the  bank 
of  the  river. 

The  best  time  for  this  view  is  at  sunset,  and  if  the  air  is  clear 
there  are  few  pictures  anywhere  in  the  world  to  surpass  it. 
There  is  a  wonderful  contrast  between  the  flat  roofs  and  domes 
and  minarets  of  the  city,  and  the  rich  green  of  the  open  country 
beyond.  Altogether  the  view  from  the  Citadel  at  sunset  is  one 
that  should  not  be  missed  by  a  visitor  to  Cairo,  and  once  enjoyed 
it  is  not  likely  to  be  speedily  forgotten. 

We  were  shown  the  spot  where  one  of  the  Mamelukes  saved 
himself,  by  jumping  his  horse  over  a  wall  and  down  upon  a  pile 
of  rubbish  thirty  or  more  feet  below.  The  horse  was  killed,  but 
the  rider  was  not  hurt. 

Mohammed  Ali  found  the  Mamelukes  troublesome,  just  as  the 
Janizaries  were  in  Constantinople,  and  he  determined  to  get  rid 
of  them.  He  invited  them  to  a  banquet  at  the  palace,  and  they 
came  in  their  richest  suits,  and  when  they  were  all  in  the  court- 
yard of  the  palace,  his  Albanian  body  guard  opened  fire  upon 
them  from  the  surrounding  windows  and  from  the  crenelated 
walls.  The  gates  had  been  shut,  and  there  was  no  chance  of 
escape,  and  all  were  slaughtered  except  Emir  Bey,  the  one  who 
saved  himself  in  the  way  mentioned.  This  little  incident  oc- 
curred in  1 8 II,  and  put  an  end  to  the  disturbances  that  the  Mam- 
elukes frequently  created. 

Mohammed  Ali  loved  peace  and  quietness  and  was  willing  to 


454 


THE  MAMELUKE    MASSACRE. 


do  anything  in  reason  to  secure  them.  The  Mamelukes  were 
constantly  making  trouble,  and  rendering  the  throne  insecure ; 
in  fact  they  had  the  power  of  saying  who  should  or  should  not  be 
the  ruler  of  the  land.  Is  there  anything  more  natural,  than  that 
he  should  study  how  to  get  rid  of  them,  and  in  such  a  way  that 
his  motives  could  not  be  questioned  ?  If  he  had  asked  them  to 
come  to  his  palace  and  be  killed,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe 
they  would  have  remained  away  ;  at  any  rate  some  of  them 
would  have  been  fastidious,  and  declined  his  polite  invitation,  so 
that  his  scheme  for  bagging  them  all  would  have  failed.  It  was 
much  better  to  invite  them  to  a  banquet ;  a  man  is  much  more 
likely  to  go  to  a  good  dinner,  than  to  accept  the  honors  of  a 
butchery  in  which  he  is  to  occupy  an  objective  place.  Some  men 
are  so  particular. 

Why  didn't  he  poison  them  at  the  banquet,  some  one  may  ask. 
Poisoning  isn't  respectable,  and  besides,  you  always  run  a  risk  of 
changing  glasses  with  somebody,  and  getting  into  your  own 
stomach  the  arsenic  you  intended  for  his.  Serv^ants  are  careless 
at  dinner,  and  then  you  always  have  some  guests,  who  don't 
drink  and  are  quite  likely  to  detest  the  particular  kind  of  soup  or 
pie  where  you  have  placed  your  medicine.  Besides,  when  you 
poison  a  man,  he  has  no  time  to  prepare  for  death,  while  in  a 
massacre  like  this  he  has  lots  of  it.  The  Mamelukes  that  were 
not  shot  at  the  first  fire  had  at  least  a  quarter  of  a  minute  for 
preparation,  as  it  would  take  quite  that  time  to  open  the  windows 
and  level  the  rifles.  Then  you  must  add  the  period  required  for 
the  bullets  to  go  from  the  rifles  to  the  Mamelukes,  and  altogether 
you  will  conclude  that  the  time  must  have  hung  heavy  on  their 
hands.  Those  not  killed  at  the  first  fire,  had  the  additional  time 
required  for  reloading,  and  you  must  remember,  before  condemn- 
ing Mohammed  Ali  for  taking  them  unawares,  that  the  rifles  of 
that  day  were  charged  at  the  muzzle  and  were  much  slower  to 
load  than  the  Sharps,  and  Mansers,  and  Chassepots  of  our  time. 

The  more  you  study  this  massacre  of  the  Mamelukes,  the  more 
you  must  admire  Mohammed  Ali  for  the  way  he  managed  it. 
He  attended  to  the  details,  and  did  no  bungling  work. 


CHAPTER     XXXVI. 


AN   INTERVIEW   WITH  THE   KHEDIVE.— LIFE   IN   THE  CITY 
OF  THE  NILE. 

The  Khedive,  who  is  he  ?— A  hard-worked  Tasha — His  personal  habits— My  in- 
terview with  him— Adventures  of  an  old  hat— Arranging  ourselves  for  a  royal 
reception — An  eastern  Monarch  in  a  European  dress— An  unimpeachable  cos- 
tume— A  fluent  talker— Bedouin  Reporters— A  carriage  from  the  Harem— Two 
pair  of  bright  eyes — Unveiling  the  women— A  talk  with  a  couple  of  pigmies— A 
nation  of  dwarf- warriors — My  impressions  of  the  Khedive. 

MOHAMMED  Ali,  the  founder  of  the  present  ruling  family 
of  Egypt,  was  a  man  of  great  ability,  but  his  energies  were 
devoted  to  repairing  the  damages  done  by  the  misfortunes  that 
preceded  his  reign,  rather  than  to  marking  out  new  paths  of  pro- 
gress for  Egypt.  At  the  time  of  his  death  in  1848  the  country 
was  much  the  same  as  in  the  early  part  of  the  century. 

Under  the  rulers  that  succeeded  him,  particularly  under  Said 
Pasha,  some  progress  was  made  ;  but  it  was  not  until  the  pres- 
ent Viceroy,  Ismail  Pasha,  ascended  the  throne,  that  Egypt  be- 
gan her  career  of  improvement.  There  were  a  few  steamboats 
on  the  Lower  Nile  before  his  time,  and  the  construction  of  the 
Suez  canal  had  been  begun,  but  the  railway  was  practically  un- 
known, and  the  cities  and  villages  were  in  much  the  same  condi- 
tion that  they  had  been  for  a  long  time.  Nearly  all  the  great 
public  works  owe  their  origin  to  the  present  Khedive,  Ismail  Pa- 
sha, and  he  can  point  with  pride  to  Egypt  as  she  stands  to-day. 

If  anybody  imagines  that  it  is  easy  work  to  be  king,  he  would 
change  his  mind,  if  he  could,  for  a  few  weeks,  make  an  exchange 
of  places  with  Ismail  Pasha.     There  is   not,  I  was  told,  a  more 

(457) 


458 


THE    KHEDIVE    AT    HOME. 


industrious  man  in  the  country  than  the  Khedive.  He  rises 
early,  takes  his  bath  and  makes  his  toilet ;  then  he  takes  a  light 
breakfast  and  sits  down  to  work  a  little  past  seven  o'clock,  and 
sometimes  before  that  hour.  There  are  a  lot  of  documents  to 
examine,  and  questions  to  decide,  which  occupy  him  until  eight 
o'clock,  when  his  ministers  arrive,  and  he  holds  counsel  with 
them  on  matters  connected  with  their  different  departments. 

Thus  his  time  is  consumed  till  near  eleven  o'clock  or  between 
ten  and  eleven,  when  he  gives  audiences  to  miscellaneous  officials, 
to  the  foreign  representatives  and  to  strangers  whom  they  have 
arranged  to  introduce  to  His  Highness.     This  lasts  until  noon 

when  he  retires  to  break- 
fast and  a  rest  of  an  hour 
or  so ;  then  he  generally 
takes  a  drive  in  his  carriage, 
and  very  often  has  one  of  his 
ministers  to  accompany  him, 
so  that  quite  possibly  he 
combines  pleasure  with  bus- 
iness, by  discussing  affairs  of 
state  during  the  drive. 

The  latter  part  of  the  day 
is  passed  according  to  cir- 
cumstances. Sometimes 
there  will  be  more  bureau 
duty  and  ministerial  inter- 
views ;  sometimes  there  are  state  dinners  and  court  ceremonies, 
and  sometimes  an  important  matter  will  come  up  unexpectedly, 
so  that  business  and  ceremony  are  crowded  close  together. 
Sometimes  he  attends  the  opera  in  the  evening,  but  this  not 
often,  and  when  he  goes  there  he  does  not  remain  to  the  end. 
He  retires  early,  so  as  to  have  plenty  of  rest,  and  he  lives  very 
carefully  and  regularly.  He  is  said  to  be  abstemious  in  matters 
of  food  and  drink,  for  only  by  his  regular  habits  could  he  preserve 
his  health  through  so  much  hard  work  as  he  performs. 

Through  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Beardsley,  our  diplomatic  agent 
and  Consul-General  for  Egypt,  I  had  the  pleasure,  one  day,  of  an 
interview  with  the  Khedive.     At  a  visit  to  the  palace  a  few  days 


ISMAIL  PASHA,  KHEDIVE  OF  EGYPT. 


TALE    OF    TWO    HATS. 


459 


before,  Mr.  Beardsley  had  asked  to  present  two  of  his  fellow 
countrymen,  Mr.  Bayard  Taylor  and  myself,  and  on  the  same 
evening  he  received  notice  that  half-past  ten  on  the  day  in 
question  had  been  fixed  for  the  reception.  We  were  notified  at 
once,  and  accordingly  crowded  our  slender  forms  into  our  dress 
suits,  brushed  our  stove-pipe  hats  into  the  best  available  appear- 
ance, and  sallied  forth  from  our  hotel. 

Candor  compels  me  to  say  that  my  hat  was  not  new,  and  had 
passed  through  a  variety  of  experiences  by  sea  and  land,  in  rain 
and  dust,  and  in  nu- 
merous mishaps  that 
had  creased,  and  in- 
dented, and  thread- 
bared  its  once  glossy 
skin  and  faultless  shape. 
It  had  been  new  once, 
but  since  then  I  had 
transported  it  across 
Europe,  summered  it  in 
Vienna,  taken  it  down 
the  Danube,  into  South- 
ern Russia,  through  the 
Crimea  and  carried  it 
to  Constantinople,  Ath- 
ens, and  Smyrna,  into 
Syria  and  Palestine,  and 
thence  into  Egypt. 
Don't  you  think  that  a  hat  which  has  been  through  so  much 
would  need  a  great  deal  of  polishing  to  fit  it  for  a  vice-regal 
presentation  .-' 

But  it  went  through  the  ordeal  gloriously,  and  as  I  kept  it  be- 
hind me  most  of  the  time,  the  Khedive  never  made — to  me  at 
least — any  comment  about  it. 

As  for  Mr.  Taylor — well,  I  may  be  revealing  a  secret  and  it 
may  breed  a  quarrel  between  us,  but  candor  again  compels  me  to 
speak  out.  His  hat  wasn't  his  hat  but  another  gentleman's,  bor- 
rowed for  the  occasion,  or  if  it  wasn't  it  might  have  been.  I 
never  saw  him  wear  it  before,  and  it  was  much  better  than  mine. 


A   TOUGH   ONE. 


460  IN  THE  Khedive's  presence. 

which  was  only  fit  to  be  seen  when  out  of  sight.  Mr,  Taylor 
ought  to  have  been  proud  of  that  hat  when  he  compared  it  with 
the  one  I  carried,  but  if  he  was,  he  was  too  polite  to  hurt  my  feel- 
ings, and  didn't  manifest  any  haughtiness. 

Accompanied  by  Mr.  Beardsley,  we  drove  to  the  Abdeen  Pal- 
ace, where  the  Khedive  resides  with  his  family, — a  neat  and  sub- 
stantial looking  edifice,  in  the  western  part  of  Cairo.  As  we  en- 
tered the  courtyard  and  drove  to  the  door,  the  sentinels  on  duty 
presented  arms,  and  we  were  met  at  the  doorway  by  Murad  Pasha, 
the  Master  of  Ceremonies,  who  greeted  us  cordially  and  escorted 
us  to  the  waiting  room  on  the  ground  floor. 

Here  we  spent  some  fifteen  minutes, — as  we  were  ahead  of 
time — in  conversation  with  the  Master  of  Ceremonies  and  with 
Ibrahim  Pasha,  nephew  of  the  Khedive.  The  secretary  and  as- 
sistant secretary  of  the  Khedive  were  present,  and  we  were  in- 
troduced to  both.  The  time  passed  away  rapidly,  as  all  were 
fluent  in  P'rench  and  the  conversation  was  not  confined  to  par- 
ticular topics. 

Promptly  at  half-past  ten  we  were  ushered  up  one  side  of  a 
double  staircase,  that  turned  and  formed  a  single  broad  escalier, 
a  dozen  steps  or  so  below  the  audience  floor.  Murad  Pasha  ac- 
companied us  to  the  foot  of  the  broad  stairway,  and  thence  we — 
the  Consul-General  and  ourselves — proceeded  alone.  As  I  raised 
my  eyes  I  saw  the  Khedive  standing  carelessly  at  the  further 
side  of  the  room ;  when  he  caught  site  of  our  advancing  column 
he  stepped  forward  to  meet  us.  He  first  greeted  Mr.  Beardsley, 
who  followed  the  greeting  by  introducing  Mr.  Taylor  with  a  few 
carefully  chosen  and  appropriate  words  concerning  him.  Then 
came  my  turn,  and  while  the  Consul-General  was  making  the  in- 
troduction, the  Khedive  shook  hands  with  us  and  welcomed  us 
to  his  house.  He  then  led  the  way  to  the  audience  room,  a 
smaller  parlor,  overlooking  the  court  yard. 

The  reception  hall,  where  he  met  us,  was  furnished  in  the 
French  style,  with  large  mirrors  and  Parisian  furniture  ;  the 
audience  parlor,  whither  we  followed  him,  was  similarly  adorned 
in  European  style,  with  chairs  and  sofas  covered  with  snow-white 
linen,  and  with  a  marble  table  in  the  centre.  The  walls  were  cov- 
ered with  blue  paper,  figured  with  small  flowers  of  a  grayish  tint, 


HOW    HE    LOOKED.  46 1 

and  the  curtains  and  fixtures  were  in  harmony  with  the  walls. 
A  tasteful  chandelier  above  the  table  was  filled  with  candles,  ready 
for  lighting,  and  on  the  table  was  a  box  of  cigars,  which,  doubt- 
less, were  equally  ready  for  lighting. 

If  we  had  gone  there  expecting  to  find  the  ruler  of  Egypt 
wearing  baggy  trowsers  and  a  turban  and  smoking  a  nargileh, 
we  should  have  been  greatly  disappointed.  His  dress  is  entirely 
European,  with  the  single  exception  of  the/^-c,  or  tarboosh,  which 
covers  his  head.  His  coat  and  trowsers  were  of  English  cut ; 
the  former  was  double-breasted,  with  silk  trimmings  on  the 
lappels,  and  he  wore  it  buttoned  after  the  style  of  a  morning  or 
walking  coat  in  London  or  New  York. 

His  shirt-front  was  almost  entirely  concealed  by  a  black  cravat 
or  necktie,  fastened  at  the  crossing  with  a  single  pin  of  what 
appeared  to  be  a  ruby  ;  beyond  this  pin  he  wore  no  jewelry  what- 
ever. His  spotless  white  collar  was  turned  down,  and  from  the 
neatness  of  its  fit  and  the  careful  polish  it  presented,  I  judge 
that  he  has  a  better  laundress  than  I  was  able  to  find  in  Cairo. 
I  was  on  the  point  of  asking  him  to  recommend  me  to  her,  but 
forebore,  on  the  supposition  that  he  might  prefer  to  keep  such  a 
good  washwoman  to  himself. 

The  figure  of  the  Khedive  is  not  of  the  lean  and  hungry  kind  ; 
he  appears  to  be  about  five  feet  nine  in  height,  and  is  decidedly 
inclined  to  stoutness,  without  being  ill-proportioned. 

Physically,  he  appears  to  have  lived  well,  without  any  over- 
feeding. His  face  is  full  and  broad,  and  he  wears  a  closely- 
trimmed  beard  and  moustache  of  a  brownish  hue.  When  in 
repose,  his  face  is  quite  thoughtful,  but  as  soon  as  he  begins  to 
talk  it  lightens  up,  and  there  is  a  constant  play  of  animation  over 
all  his  features.  His  brown  eyes  sparkle,  and  he  accompanies 
his  facial  expression  with  frequent  gestures  of  his  hand§,  quite 
in  contrast  to  the  solemn  and  stately  manner  which  we  associate 
with  Oriental  rulers. 

The  Khedive  took  a  seat  in  the  corner  of  the  room,  and  mo- 
tioned us  to  places  near  him,  one  on  his  right  and  two  on  his  left, 
so  that  he  could  address  all  three  without  any  necessity  for  a 
change  of  position  beyond  a  very  slight  turning  of  the  head. 
He  began  the  conversation  by  asking  Mr.  Taylor  if  this  was  his 


462  AN  INTELLIGENT  MONARCH. 

first  visit  to  Egypt.     The  latter  replied  that  he  was  there  twenty- 
years  ago  and  made  a  journey  to  the  White  Nile, 

"  Ah,  yes,"  said  His  Highness,  "  that  was  in  the  time  of  Abbas 
Pasha." 

Mr.  Taylor  bowed  assent,  and  remarked  the  wonderful  changes 
that  had  taken  place  since  that  time,  and  the  great  progress  that 
he  noticed  all  around,  to  which  the  Khedive  made  acknowledg- 
ment by  a  slight  but  graceful  bow. 

There  was  a  pause  of  a  few  seconds,  which  was  broken  by  a 
question  from  Mr.  Beardsley  as  to  the  latest  intelligence  from 
the  upper  country,  where  the  Egyptian  troops  had  a  battle  with 
the  army  of  the  King  of  Darfoor. 

"  Nothing  very  recent,"  was  the  reply  of  the  Khedive  ;  "nothing 
since  the  news  two  or  three  weeks  ago  of  the  battle  in  which  the 
King  was  defeated.  The  report  was  that  the  King  attacked  our 
forces,  and  was  defeated  with  heavy  loss,  but  it  must  have  been 
his  son,  as  the  King  himself,  le  pauvre  ^z^i^/^',  is  totally  blind,  and 
couldn't  do  much  in  leading  an  army.  I  am  sure  it  must  have 
been  his  son,  though  the  dispatch  did  not  say  so." 

Conversation  then  went  on,  concerning  Darfoor  and  its  extent 
and  resources.  The  Khedive  spoke  of  the  effort  he  was  making 
for  the  suppression  of  the  slave-trade,  and  said  they  had  a  force 
stationed  there  to  watch  the  frontier  and  liberate  the  slaves  which 
were  being  transported  by  caravans. 

"  The  Bedouins  inform  us,"  said  he,  "  of  the  movements  of  the 
caravans,  so  that  we  have  no  difficulty  in  knowing  where  they 
are.  We  have  told  the  Darfoorians  that  we  do  hot  wish  to  inter- 
fere with  them,  only  in  stopping  the  slave  trade,  and  we  are  on 
good  terms  with  them,  except  in  this  one  matter." 

He  said,  further,  that  the  Darfoorian  army  had  four  cannon, 
and  that  in  the  recent  battle  the  Egyptians  took  three  of  them. 

I  asked  him  where  they  obtained  the  cannon,  and  he  said,  with 
a  smile,  that  two  of  them  were  sent  as  a  present  from  Said  Pasha, 
the  former  Viceroy,  to  the  King  of  Darfoor.  These  two  guns 
were  among  the  three  captured ;  the  third  was  a  very  old  and 
nearly  useless  piece  that  the  Darfoorians  bought,  probably,  from 
some  of  the  traders  to  the  sea-coast,  and  the  other  gun  which 
they  still  retained  was  of  the  same  sort. 


A    GLIMPSE    OF    THE    HAREM.  463 

I  asked  v/hat  kind  of  small  arms  the  Darfoorians  had,  and  he 
replied  that,  in  addition  to  their  lances  and  bows  and  arrows,  they 
had  flint-lock  muskets,  quite  inadequate  for  coping  with  the 
breech-loading  rifles  with  which  his  own  army  is  equipped. 

After  some  further  talk  about  the  Darfoorians  and  the  country 
of  the  Soudan,  which  Egypt  has  recently  explored,  and  continues 
to  explore,  the  conversation  turned  upon  the  pigmies,  which  had 
been  brought  from  Central  Africa.  The  Khedive  gave  us  some 
interesting  details  about  them,  and  recommended  that  we  should 
go  and  see  them  at  the  Kast'-el-Nil  barracks,  where  they  were 
then  kept.  There  was  a  brief  conversation  about  the  explora- 
tions of  Livingstone,  Schweinfurth.and  Miani,  and  when  it  ended, 
the  Khedive  rose,  and  we  did  likewise.  He  accompanied  us  to 
the  head  of  the  staircase,  gave  each  a  farewell  hand-shake,  and 
said,  in  addition  to  the  usual  phrases  of  civility,  "If  I  can  be  of 
any  service  to  you,  do  not  hesitate  to  inform  me." 

We  thanked  him  for  his  proffered  kindness,  bowed  our  adieux, 
and  descended  the  stairway.  At  the  foot  we  were  met  by  the 
Master  of  Ceremonies,  who  accompanied  us  to  the  waiting-room, 
where  we  had  left  our  overcoats,  and  subsequently  accompanied 
us  to  our  carriage. 

Our  interview  with  the  Khedive  lasted  about  twenty  minutes. 
He  speaks  French  easily  and  correctly,  and  without  any  hesita- 
tion whatever.  His  manner  throughout  was  easy  and  frank,  and 
thoroughly  pleasant,  and  such  as  to  remove  any  embarrassment 
on  the  part  of  a  visitor.  There  were  touches  of  humor  in  his 
utterances,  which  cannot  be  rendered  into  English  without  losing 
their  charm,  and  therefore  I  will  not  attempt  to  give  them. 

From  the  Abdeen  palace  we  drove  to  the  barracks  of  Kasr-el- 
Nil  to  see  the  little  men  about  whom  His  Highness  had  told  us. 
Just  as  we  left  the  palace,  we  met  one  of  the  harem  carriages, 
containing  two  women,  guarded  by  a  couple  of  soldiers  and  the 
same  number  of  eunuchs.  The  four  were  on  splendid  horses,  the 
soldiers  preceding  and  the  eunuchs  following  the  carriage.  The 
blind  of  the  carriage  was  down,  and  as  the  vehicle  whisked  rap- 
idly past  us,  I  caught  sight  of  a  couple  of  veiled  faces  with  flash- 
ing bright  eyes,  and  with  pretty  features  just  visible  beneath  the 
thin  gauze. 


464  INTERVIEWING   THE    PIGMIES. 

It  was  a  passing  vision,  a  glimpse  of  a  moment,  that  left  no 
impression  that  could  be  retained.  It  is  an  impression  which  one 
receives  quite  often  in  Cairo,  if  he  chooses  to  look  toward  the 
harem  carriages  when  making  their  afternoon  promenade.  The 
family  of  the  Khedive  are  more  fortunate  than  that  of  any  other 
Mohammedan  ruler,  as  it  can  ride  in  carriages  and  see  far  more 
of  out-door  life  than  the  royal  ladies  of  other  Eastern  cities. 

The  Khedive  is  no  bigot,  as  many  things  indicate.  I  was  told, 
though  how  truly  I  cannot  say,  that  he  is  quite  willing  to  allow 
his  wives  to  appear  unveiled  after  the  European  manner,  and  that 
probably  they  will  do  so  before  many  years.  I  fancy  that  the 
prejudices  of  the  women  would  be  found  stronger  than  his.  Cus- 
tom of  long  standing  declares  that  no  modest  woman  goes  with 
her  face  uncovered.  To  ask  a  Mohammedan  woman  to  unveil 
her  face  in  public,  would  be  as  bad  as  to  request  a  fashionable 
belle  of  New  York  to  walk  along  Fifth  Avenue  in  the  costume  of 
the  Black  Crook. 

As  we  entered  the  parade  ground  of  the  barracks,  we  saw 
what  appeared  to  be  a  couple  of  negro  boys,  playing  at  one  side, 
and  ascertained  on  inquiry,  that  they  were  the  dwarfs  or  pigmies, 
for  whom  we  were  searching.  We  called  them  up  and  examined 
them  closely,  and  they  were  certainly  rare  curiosities.  There 
were  only  two,  the  taller  said  to  be  twenty  and  the  shorter  ten 
years  old  ;  we  measured  their  height,  and  found  them  respectively 
fort)^-six  and  forty-three  inches  in  their  shoes  ;  the  younger,  as 
he  stood  beside  me,  came  not  quite  up  to  my  hip.  The  eldest 
measured  twenty-four  inches  around  the  chest  and  twenty-seven 
around  the  waist ;  their  abdomens  protruded  considerably,  and 
their  backs  were  quite  hollow. 

This  excessive  protuberance  of  the  abdomen  is  probably  due 
to  their  vegetable  diet,  as  the  Khedive  had  told  us  that  they  lived, 
when  at  home,  almost  entirely  on  bananas  and  similar  fruits. 
They  stood  quite  erect, — I  held  a  stick  perpendicularly  behind 
each  of  them,  and  found  that  when  their  heads  touched  it,  their 
backs  were  more  than  two  inches  from  it. 

Their  necks  are  short,  their  limbs  well  formed,  though  they  are 
somewhat  bowed  in  the  legs,  and^  their  feet  are  long  and  flat. 
Their  heads  are  a  curious  study.     The  complexion  is  not  the 


A    NATION    OF    DWARFS.  465 

deepest  black  of  the  negro  of  Nubia,  but  has  rather  a  brownish 
hue  ;  their  hair  is  woolly,  and  their  noses  are  flat,  as  though 
broken  in  with  a  hammer. 

On  looking  down  over  the  forehead  of  the  elder,  I  could  see 
the  lips  protruding  beyond  the  nose ;  and  it  appeared  too,  that 
the  nostrils  extended  further  than  did  the  centre  of  the  organ  of 
smell.  The  lips  are  full  and  rounded,  but  less  thick  than  those 
of  the  negro  generally.  Their  faces  were  bright,  and  had  a 
pleasing  appearance,  though  not  indicating  a  high  intellect. 

Accompanying  them  was  a  "  Dinka  "  negro,  from  the  White 
Nile,  and  Mr.  Taylor  questioned  him  in  Arabic  about  the  pig- 
mies and  their  country.  He  said  these  men  came  from  a  region 
in  the  interior,  and  that  it  took  the  caravans  a  year  and  a  half  to' 
go  there  and  return.  Very  little  was  known  about  the  pigmies, 
beyond  the  fact  that  their  country  is  quite  extensive,  and  all  the 
people  are  of  diminutive  size.  The  King  was  no  larger  than  the 
taller  of  the  two  before  us,  and  they  are  a  warlike  people,  who 
fight  very  earnestly  to  prevent  anybody  visiting  them.  Their 
country  is  covered  with  jungle,  and  they  conceal  themselves  in 
the  thickets  and  send  showers  of  arrows  upon  the  invaders. 

We  endeavored  to  get  them  to  talk,  but  they  would  not.  One 
of  the  soldiers  told  them  to  speak,  but  the  elder  turned  away 
rather  sullenly,  and  would  not  utter  a  word.  The  soldiers  said 
their  language  was  quite  unlike  Arabic,  Nubian,  or  any  other 
that  they  ever  heard,  and  further  said  the  pair  talked  a  great 
deal  and  very  rapidly,  when  playing  together,  The  name  of  the 
elder  was  Tubal,  and  that  of  the  younger  Karrell.  and  they  call 
their  country  "  Takka-lakka-leeka." 

Dr.  Schweinfurth,  the  distinguished  German  explorer,  learned 
something  about  these  people ;  but  it  was  the  good  fortune  of 
Miani,  an  Italian,  who  had  been  a  long  time  in  Africa,  to  visit 
them  and  secure  three  specimens,  two  men  and  a  woman,  with 
whom  he  started  for  Europe.  But  he  died  while  still  in  the 
wilds  of  Africa,  and  his  papers  and  effects,  including  the  three 
pigmies,  were  sent  to  Khartoum.  There  they  were  seized,  to 
cover  certain  debts  of  Miani's  to  merchants  in  Khartoum,  and 
the  pigmies,  who  were  supposed  to  be  slaves,  were  thrown  into 
prison,  where  the  woman  died.     They  were  not  kept  there  long, 


466  HOW    THEY    LIVE. 

as  the  facts  about  them  were  speedily  made  known,  and  soon 
after  their  release  from  prison  they  were  sent  to  Cairo. 

The  Khedive  showed  a  deep  interest  in  the  subject  of  the 
country  of  the  dwarfs  and  its  peculiar  population,  and  quite 
probably  the  expeditions  he  has  since  sent  into  Central  Africa 
were  instructed  to  learn  something  more  of  them  and  to  pene- 
trate the  remote  district  if  possible. 

During  our  conversation  he  called  special  attention  to  the  fact, 
that  a  dwarf  of  any  race  has  a  head  disproportionately  large,  and 
arms  or  legs  disproportionately  long  or  short.  "  But  you  will 
see,"  said  he,  "  that  these  little  men  are  perfectly  formed,  like  a 
well-shaped  adult,  with  the  exception  of  the  abdomen,  which  is 
due  to  their  vegetable  diet,  and  that  the  elder  has  hands  and 
fingers  like  those  of  a  person  who  has  reached  his  full  size." 
We  looked  for  dwarfish  peculiarities,  but  found  none,  and  were 
quite  of  the  opinion  of  others  who  have  examined  them,  that 
they  are  a  race  of  pigmies. 

From  the  Kasr-el-Nil  we  drove  through  the  new  part  of  Cairo, 
along  the  broad  macadamized  streets,  and  after  dropping  the 
Consul-General  at  his  residence,  returned  to  our  hotel  with  the 
reflection  that  we  had  passed  an  agreeable,  interesting,  and  in- 
structive forenoon. 

I  was  particularly  struck  with  the  thorough  information  of  the 
Khedive,  and  the  interest  he  manifested  concerning  the  pigmies, 
and  about  Darfoor  and  other  subjects  of  our  conversation,  and 
asked  Mr.  Beardsley  if  he  was  equally  well  informed  about 
matters  in  general. 

"  Equally  so,"  was  the  reply.  "  I  don't  see  how  he  manages  to 
keep  so  well  posted  as  he  does  ;  he  has  a  remarkably  retentive 
memory  about  everything,  whether  of  business  or  any  other  mat- 
ter. When  I  mention  anything  that  we  may  have  talked  about 
weeks  before,  he  remembers  how  it  was  left  at  that  interview, 
and  shows  that  it  has  by  no  means  passed  his  mind." 

"  He  knows  the  course  of  European,  Asiatic,  and  American 
politics  ;  understands  the  religious  questions  in  England  and 
France,  and  any  other  important  topic  ;  has  the  run  of  affairs  in 
Spain  or  other  revolutionary  countries,  and  is,  in  fact,  "up"  in  all 
the  news  of  the  day.     He  must  read  a  great  deal  when  we  think 


A    PASHA    OF    THREE    TAILS.  46/ 

he  is  at  rest,  and  he  must  remember  all  that  he  reads.  He 
attends  personally  to  all  the  affairs  of  the  country,  and  though 
he  leaves  the  details  to  his  ministers,  there  is  no  question,  except 
of  a  very  trivial  nature,  that  is  not  submitted  to  him  for  decision. 
Any  matter  concerning  the  government  in  any  way,  goes  through 
the  department  to  which  it  belongs,  but  must  always  go  before 
the  Khedive  before  it  can  be  decided." 

The  title,  Khedive,  is  a  Persian  one,  equivalent  to  "viceroy," 
or,  as  some  persons  assert,  to  "  king."  The  ruler  I  have  been 
describing  is  the  first  occupant  of  the  Egyptian  throne  to  wear 
the  title.  He  is  addressed  in  conversation  as  "  Your  Highness," 
and  is  generally  spoken  of  as  "  His  Highness."  The  ministers 
of  state  and  other  high  dignitaries  in  Egypt  are  known  as  "  Ex- 
cellencies," and  to  address  one  of  them  without  the  prefix, 
"  Votre  Excellejtce"  might  give  offence.  They  hold  rank  as 
pashas,  and  are  nearly  always  gentlemen  of  liberal  education 
and  marked  ability.  "  Pasha,"  like  "  Khedive,"  is  of  Persian 
origin  ;  it  is  of  great  antiquity,  and  was  originally  used  to  desig- 
nate the  governor  of  a  city  or  province.  There  are  several 
grades  of  pashas,  just  as  in  our  country  there  are  several  grades 
of  generals.  In  some  parts  of  the  Orient  the  pasha,  when  he 
goes  abroad,  is  preceded  by  an  officer  bearing  a  pole,  from  which 
is  suspended  the  insignia  of  the  great  man's  rank. 

If  he  is  a  first-class  pasha,  his  rank  is  indicated  by  three 
horse  tails,  and  he  is  called  a  pasha  of  three  tails.  Then  there 
are  pashas  of  two  tails  (much  more  common  than  cats  with  two 
tails),  and  there  are  also  one-tailed  pashas. 

Soon  after  I  left  Egypt,  one  of  the  high  officials  was  removed 
and  furnished  with  an  indefinite  leave  of  absence.  A  friend, 
writing  me  from  Cairo,  stated  the  case  thus  : 

"  You  may  have  heard  of  the  change  whereby  the  head  of  one 
of  the  departments  has  become  a  pasha  of  no  tail  whatever." 

Which  was  not  a  bad  way  of  putting  it. 


27 


CHAPTER     XXXVII. 

STREET-LIFE  IN  CAIRO. 

Cairo,  old  and  new — A  visit  to  the  ancient  city — The  Nilometer,  What  is  it  ? — Meas- 
uring the  rise  of  the  Nile — Moses  in  the  Bulrushes — Tombs  of  the  Caliphs — An 
Egyptian  funeral — Curious  customs — "Crowding  the  Mourners" — Water-carriers 
and  their  ways — A  noisy  tobacco-vender — Glimpses  of  the  Arabian  Nights — Among 
•  the  Bazaars — Street  scenes  in  Cairo — A  cavalcade  of  Donkeys — Hoaxing  a  Don- 
key-boy— Amusing  spectacle — Putting  up  a  rid*  at  auction — An  Arab  storv — A 
Nation  of  Liars  and  why  ! — Mosques  of  Cairo — Stones  from  the  Great  Pyramid. 

CAIRO  consists  of  two  cities,  the  new  and  the  old,  and  they 
are  two  or  three  miles  apart.  Old  Cairo  is  on  the  bank  of 
the  river,  near  the  island  of  Roda,  and  is  quite  picturesque,  being 
full  of  narrow,  crooked  streets,  where  one  must  be  very  cautious 
to  prevent  being  run  over.  The  windows  project  so  far  over  the 
street  that  they  frequently  touch,  and  it  would  be  the  easiest  mat- 
ter in  the  world  to  go  from  one  to  another.  The  city  was  for- 
merly much  more  extensive  than  now,  and  many  of  its  houses  are 
in  a  ruinous  condition. 

From  old  Cairo  we  went  to  the  island  of  Roda  to  see  the  fa- 
mous Nilometer,  where  the  rise  of  the  river  during  the  inunda- 
tion is  recorded.  It  is  nothing  more  than  a  deep  pit  or  well, 
with  a  column  in  the  center,  marked  with  a  graduated  scale. 
This  Nilometer  is  about  a  thousand  years  old.  There  is  a  more 
ancient  one  at  the  island  of  Elephantine,  near  the  first  cataract, 
and  history  records  that  there  was  one  in  use  at  the  time  of  the 
Pharaohs.  Near  the  present  Nilometer  is  the  spot  said  by  tra- 
dition to  be  that  where  the  infant  Moses  was  found  by  Pharaoh's 

(468) 


iiil 


S^liiilSiKMllli 


MOSES'  ARK  AND  THE  SULTAn's  TOMBS.  469 

daughter.  The  island  is  quite  pretty  and  is  covered  with  fruit 
and  other  gardens. 

Outside  the  city,  and  close  to  the  border  of  the  desert,  are  the 
tombs  of  the  Barghite  Sultans,  which  are  generally  called,  though 
erroneously,  the  tombs  of  the  Caliphs.  The  real  burying  places 
of  the  Caliphs  of  Cairo  are  in  the  city,  not  far  from  the  bazaars, 
and  in  the  busiest  part  of  this  very  busy  capital. 

The  Moslem  awaits  death  with  the  utmost  composure.  When 
a  learned  or  pious  Moslem  feels  that  he  is  about  to  die,  he  per- 
forms the  ordinary  ablution,  as  before  prayer,  that  he  may  de- 
part from  life  in  a  state  of  bodily  purity  ;  and  he  generally  re- 
peats the  profession  of  his  faith.  It  is  not  uncommon  for  a  Mos- 
lem on  a  military  expedition,  or  during  a  long  journey  through 
the  desert,  to  carry  his  grave  linen  with  him.  It  often  happens 
that  a  traveler  in  such  circumstances  has  even  to  make  his  own 
grave ;  completely  overcome  by  fatigue  or  privation,  or  sinking 
under  a  fatal  disease  in  the  desert,  when  his  companions,  if  he 
have  any,  cannot  wait  for  his  recovery  or  death,  he  performs  the 
ablution,  with  water,  if  possible,  or,  if  not  with  sand  or  dust  which  is 
allowable  in  such  case,  and  then  having  made  a  trench  in  the 
sand  as  his  grave^  lies  down  in  it  wrapped  in  his  grave  clothes, 
and  covers  himself  with  the  exception  of  his  face  with  thes  and 
taken  up  in  making  the  trench :  thus  he  waits  for  death  to  re- 
lieve him,  trusting  to  the  wind  to  complete  his  burial. 

The  ceremonies  attendant  upon  death  and  burial  are  nearly 
the  same  in  the  cases  of  men  and  women.  When  the  rattles  in 
the  throat,  or  other  symptoms,  show  that  a  man  is  at  the  point 
of  death,  an  attendant  turns  him  round  to  place  his  face  in  the 
direction  of  Mecca,  and  closes  his  eyes. 

Many  of  the  tombs  of  the  Turkish  grandees  have  marble  tar- 
kecbchs  which  are  canopied  by  cupolas  supported  by  four  col- 
umns of  marble.  There  are  numerous  tombs  of  this  description 
in  the  cemetery  at  Cairo  We  were  rather  disappointed  in  our 
visit  to  the  tombs  of  the  Sultans.  They  were  originally  very  hand- 
some, but  are  now  in  a  very  ruinous  condition ,  and  they  bid  fair  to  be 
altogether  destroyed  before  many  years.  There  were  two  or  three 
with  lofty  domes  and  minarets,  quite  like  the  mosques  of  Cairo. 
They  were  really  intended  as  mosques,  in  connection  with  the 


470  A    FUNERAL    PROCESSION. 

tombs,  so  as  to  furnish  praying  places  for  the  faithful  whenever 
they  wished  to  pay  respect  to  the  dead. 

From  the  outside  and  at  a  little  distance  they  present  a  fine 
effect,  with  their  backing  of  sand-covered  hills  and  the  general 
surroundings  of  approaching  desolation.  Inside  we  found  por- 
tions of  the  smaller  walls  torn  away  to  be  used  in  other  buildings, 
and  in  one  of  the  mosques,  cows  and  donkeys  were  stabled.  The 
windows  were  broken  and  ragged.  The  floors  were  dirty  and  the 
attendants  were  noisy  Arabs,  who  seemed  to  have  no  other  ob- 
ject in  remaining  there  than  the  collection  of  "  backsheesh,"  in 
which  they  were  most  persistent. 

At  the  cemetery  near  these  tombs  we  saw  a  funeral  procession 
and  followed  it,  out  of  curiosity.  Half  a  dozen  men,  some  of 
them  blind,  and  each  resting  a  hand  on  the  shoulder  of  another, 
led  the  way  and  chanted  a  melancholy  air.  Then  came  a  man 
with  a  small  coffin  borne  on  his  head,  and  behind  him  were  half  a 
dozen  women  and  as  many  boys,  the  women  closely  veiled  ac- 
cording to  the  custom  of  the  country. 

The  procession  did  not  move  in  couples,  according  to  the  Oc- 
cidental custom  ;  there  was  no  observance  of  regularity,  except 
that  the  men  were  in  front  of  the  coffin  and  the  women  and  boys 
behind  it.  They  moved  through  the  country  to  a  spot  where  a 
grave  had  been  opened ;  near  it  the  women  stopped  and  sat 
down,  and  the  bearers  placed  the  coffin  on  the  ground,  a  priest 
uttered  a  prayer,  and  then  the  man  who  had  brought  the  cofP.n 
— a  sort  of  oblong  box,  with  a  shawl  over  it — removed  the  shawl, 
and  took  from  beneath  it  the  corpse. 

It  was  that  of  a  child  about  two  years  old,  and  was  completely 
wrapped  in  cloth  and  bound  around  with  cords,  somewhat  as  one 
might  wrap  a  bale  of  goods  to  keep  it  from  falling  apart.  The 
man  advanced  to  the  edge  of  the  grave,  and  placed  the  corpse  in- 
side, with  very  little  ceremony,  or  rather,  with  no  ceremony  at 
all.  The  women  set  up  a  mournful  cry,  and  one  of  the  men  of 
the  party  approached  us  and  told  our  guide  that  they  wished  us 
to  retire.  As  soon  as  the  request  was  translated,  we  walked 
away,  feeling  that  we  had  been  guilty  of  an  intrusion. 

I  saw  several  funeral  processions  in  Cairo,  and  had  previously 
seen  them  in  Damascus,  Smyrna,  and  other  Oriental  cities.     At 


STRANGE    BURIAL    CUSTOMS.  4/1 

all  of  them  the  custom  was  the  same,  the  singers  preceding  the 
corpse  and  the  mourners  following  it.  The  one  here  described 
was  the  burial  of  the  child  of  a  poor  woman,  and  there  was  little 
display  and  little  ceremony.  Some  of  the  processions  that  came 
under  my  notice  were  of  considerable  extent,  the  singers 
or  chanters  numbering  from  fifty  to  a  hundred,  and  being  accom- 
panied by  mollahs  or  priests. 

The  corpse,  in  such  cases,  was  covered  with  rich  shawls,  and 
at  the  head  of  the  coffin  there  was  a  small  post  to  sustain  the 
cap  worn  by  the  deceased.  In  the  tombs  of  the  wealthy  these 
caps  remain  at  the  head  of  the  coffin,  and  the  visitor  to  the  tombs 
of  the  various  Sultans  of  Turkey  will  not  fail  to  notice  how  in- 
variably the  fez  is  placed  at   the  head  of  him  who  once  wore  it. 

The  coffin  is  supported  on  the  shoulders  of  four  bearers,  and 
there  is  frequently  a  relay  to  take  their  places  from  time  to  time  ; 
and  there  is  a  large  following  of  friends  of  the  deceased,  some  on 
foot,  and  some  mounted  on  donkeys,  and  from  time  to  time  a 
sound  of  wailing  rises  from  the  mourning  party. 

Some  of  the  mourners  are  professionals  hired  for  the  occasion, 
while  others  belong  to  the  family  of  the  defunct.  The  crowd  in 
the  street  does  not  suspend  its  avocations,  or  pay  the  slightest 
sign  of  respect  for  the  procession,  beyond  making  room  for  it  to 
pass.  And  frequently  persons  in  a  hurry,  and  wishing  to  cross 
the  line  of  procession,  do  so  without  ceremony. 

A  stranger  in  Cairo  sees  a  great  deal  to  amuse  him,  and  if  he 
keeps  his  eyes  open  he  can  learn  much  that  is  new. 

The  water  of  the  wells  in  Cairo  is  slightly  brackish,  and  many 
people  obtain  their  livelihood  by  supplying  the  inhabitants  with 
water  from  the  Nile.  The  water  seller,  or  carrier,  has  across  his 
shoulders  what  appears  to  be  a  sack  when  carelessly  observed,  but 
proves  on  examination  to  be  the  skin  of  a  pig  or  a  goat.  The  skin 
has  been  taken  off  as  near  whole  as  possible  and  is  then  sewn  up 
so  that  when  filled  with  water  it  has  the  shape  of  the  animal  that 
once  wore  it.  It  is  filled  through  the  neck,  which  is  not  tied,  but 
held  in  the  hands  of  the  bearer,  who  carries  his  burden  across  his 
back  and  sustains  it  in  place  by  means  of  a  strong  strap. 

Some  of  these  water  skins  have  a  long  neck  and  a  nozzle  that 
points  into  the  air  like  the  muzzle  of  a  rifle.     The  skin  hangs  on  the 


472 


A    POETICAL    WATER    CARRIER. 


bearer's  back,  and  the  spout  is  behind  his  shoulder  ;  in  his  hands 
he  has  a  couple  of  brass  cups,  which  he  rattles  to  secure  attention. 
When  he  finds  a  customer,  he  fills  one  of  the  cups  through 
the  nozzle,  and  the  accuracy  and  skill  he  displays  in  the  opera- 
tion evince  long  practice.  As  he  walks  along  he  calls  out  some- 
times, "  Moie,  moie  ! "  but  more  frequently  some  Arabic  words 
that  mean,  "  O,  ye  thirsty !  O,  ye  thirsty  ! "  and  occasionally  he 

adds  something  about 
the  delights  of  a  cup 
of  cool,  delicious  water, 
and  sounds  the  praises 
of  the  special  lot  that 
he  carries. 

I  was  told  by  persons 
who  understand  the 
language,  that  there  is 
much  poetry  in  its 
every-day  use,  and  the 
water  carrier,  as  I  have 
^_._^^^^J  just  explained,  is  poet- 
ical in  his  appeals, 
^  and  so  are  the  street 
M  peddlers  of  all  grades. 
--_  The  venders  of  veg- 
fj:  etables,  of  candy,  of 
bread,  and  other  edi- 
^^;  bles  do  not,  as  a  general 
thing,  name  the  articles 
they  have  for  sale,  but 
they  address  appeals  to  the  hungry,  allude  to  the  tortures  of  hun- 
ger, and  the  pleasure  of  satisfying  it.  The  seller  of  shoes  appeals 
to  the  unshod,  and  beseeches  them  to  go  barefoot  no  longer.  The 
seller  of  tobacco  calls  to  those  who  smoke  and  love  the  fragrant 
Latakiah,  or  the  invigorating  Koranny.  "  O,  ye  man,"  "  O,  ye 
woman,"  "  O,  ye  old  man,"  is  shouted  by  your  donkey  driver  as 
he  guides  you  through  the  crowded  streets,  and  he  changes  it  to 
*'  O,  ye  people,"  when  the  number  is  so  great  that  he  cannot  afford 
to  address  them  in  detail. 


"O,  YE  THIRSTY.' 


MUSICAL    PEDDLERS. 


473 


"Backsheesh,  O,  Howadji,"  (a  present,  O,  gentlemen),  is  the 
appeal  of  the  beggar  to  the  passing  stranger.  The  dealer  in 
fresh  clover  for  donkeys'  food  chants,  "  From  green  fields  I  bring 
the  odors  of  fresh  verdure,"  and  the  squinting  merchants  in  the 
Perfume  Bazaar  vaunt  the  praises  of  their  wares  in  words  that 
fill  the  Moslem  mind  with  thoughts  of  Paradise,  and  bear  it 
away  from  prosaic  thoughts  and  duties  of  every-day  life. 


CHILDREN   BREAD-SELLERS   IN   THE   STREETS   OF   CAIRO. 

Somebody  has  said  that  to  find  a  Princess  Scheherazade,  you 
have  only  to  scratch  the  back  of  your  Cairene  donkey  boy,  and 
with  a  slight  encouragement  he  will  begin  to  talk  in  the  strain 
of  the  Arabian  Nights.  I  found  it  so  to  some  extent  in  my 
acquaintance  with  the  Egyptian  capital.  Most  of  the  donkey 
drivers  that  frequent  the  fronts  of  the  hotels  can  speak  I^nglish, 
and  some  of  them  quite  well.     They  are  as   a  class  bright  and 


474  BORN    LIARS. 

intelligent,  and  can  be  relied  upon  for  information  as  to  the  cus- 
toms of  the  people.  Their  knowledge  of  localities  is  sufficient 
for  all  the  purposes  for  which  a  guide  is  usually  employed,  and 
as  soon  as  our  party,  in  its  collective  capacity,  were  through  with 
sight-seeing,  we  fell  back  upon  the  donkey  boys,  and  dismissed 
our  professional  guide. 

Whether  the  Cairenes  indulge  to-day  in  stories  like  that  of  the 
Enchanted  Horse,  and  Sinbad  the  Sailor,  I  am  unable  to  say, 
but  in  the  matter  of  scandal  they  are  quite  up  to  the  Occidental 
mark.  One  of  the  donkey  boys  at  the  hotel  told  me  a  variety  of 
incidents  connected  with  the  harems,  and  some  of  them  are  of  a 
very  apochryphal  character. 

There  is  one  peculiarity  of  the  Arab  that  a  stranger  will  not 
be  long  in  detecting,  and  that  is  his  readiness  to  answer  each 
and  every  question  you  may  put  to  him.  Ask  him  something, 
and  if  he  knows  the  answer  he  will  generally  give  it  ;  if  he  does 
not  know,  he  will  reply  with  anything  that  his  imagination  sug- 
gests, and  he  does  it  as  gravely  as  though  he  were  expounding  a 
text  of  the  Koran. 

One  day,  I  asked  a  donkey  boy  how  much  he  would  ask  to 
take  me  to  the  Astor  House. 

"  Two  shillin',''  was  the  prompt  reply. 

He  hadn't  the  remotest  idea  where  it  was,  but  did  not  hesitate 
a  moment  to  undertake  to  find  it.     So  I  asked  him  where  it  was. 

"  I  savez,  I  savez  ;  on  the  Esebekiah,"  he  replied,  and  pushed 
his  donkey  around  for  me  to  enter  the  saddle  Other  boys  came 
up,  and  I  said  I  wished  to  go  the  Astor  House  and  Tammany 
Hall. 

In  half  a  minute  the  whole  crowd  was  vociferating,  and  the 
price  fell  from  two  shillings  to  two  francs,  and  then  to  one  shil- 
ling. I  was  obliged  to  end  the  matter  by  hiring  a  donkey  and 
going  to  the  citadel.  Every  driver  was  ready  to  take  me  to  the 
places  I  mentioned,  and  was  confident  he  could  find  them. 

The  Arabs  have  a  story  which  they  tell,  to  account  for  their 
tendency  to  falsehood. 

They  say  that  His  Satanic  Majesty  once  came  on  earth  with 
nine  bags  full  of  lies.  He  scattered  the  contents  of  one  bag  in 
Europe,  and  then  started  for  Asia,  Africa,  and  the  Oriental  Isles. 


MOS<MIF.  OK  THK  SULTAN  HASSAN,   AT  CAIRO. 


A    STORY    OF    THE    DEVIL. 


477 


He  arrived  at  Alexandria  in  the  evening,  and  was  to  continue 
his  work  next  day,  but  during  the  night  some  wicked  Arabs  stole 
the  other  eight  bags,  and  distributed  the  contents  among  their 
people. 

Cairo  is  not  so  rich  in  mosques  as  Constantinople,  but  there 
are  several,  of  no  small  importance.  The  finest  of  these  is  that 
commonly  known  as  Sultan  Hassan  ;  it  stands  just  below  the 
citadel,  and  is  a  prominent  feature  in  the  view  of  the  city.  The 
Cairenes  are  justly 
proud  of  it,  and 
have  a  story  that 
the  King  cut  off  the 
hand  of  the  archi- 
tect, to  make  sure 
that  he  would  not 
repeat  his  work. 
But  as  this  little 
incident  has  had 
its  run  in  all  coun- 
tries and  ages,  we 
may  conclude  that 
the  King  did  noth- 
ing of  the  sort.  It 
is  much  more  likely 
that  he  compelled 
the  architect  to 
wait  for  his  pay, 
and  finally  accept 
fifty  cents  on  the 
dollar. 

The  stones  used  for  constructing  this  mosque,  came  from  the 
great  Pyramid  ;  some  of  them  were  recut,  but  the  greater  part 
are  in  their  original  shape.  The  interior  consists  of  a  dome, 
resting  on  four  grand  arches,  the  eastern  one  having  a  span  of 
sixty-five  and  a  half  feet.  The  dome  is  of  wood,  and,  like  many 
other  domes  in  Cairo,  is  not  kept  in  good  repair. 


YOUNG   STREET  ARABS   OF   CAIRO. 


CHAPTER     XXXVIII. 


THE  BAZAARS   OF   CAIRO.— EGYPTIAN   CURIOSITY   SHOPS. 


More  About  the  Bazaars — How  They  Sell  Goods  in  Cairo — Furniture,  Fleas,  and 
Filth — Trading  in  Pipe  Stems  and  Coffee  Pots — A  Queer  Collection  of  Bric-a- 
Brac — Driving  Close  Bargains — A  Specimen  of  Yankee  Shrewdness — A  Miniature 
Blacksmith  Shop — A  Cloud  of  Perfumes — Gems,  Guns,  and  Damascus  Blades — 
An  Arabian  Auction — At  the  Egyptian  Opera — The  Dancing  Girls  of  Cairo — The 
Ladies  from  the  Harem — A  Scanty  Costume — The  Ballet  of  "  The  Prodigal  Son" 
— The  Ladies  of  the  Opera  and  Their  Life. 

ONE  of  the  first  objects  of  interest  at  Cairo  is  the  great 
centre  of  trade,  known  as  the  bazaars.  They  are  not  so 
compactly  arranged  as  the  bazaars  of  Damascus,  or  of  Constan- 
tinople, and  in  some  features  they  are  inferior  to  those  of  either 
of  the  above  cities  ;  but  they  are  nevertheless  very  interesting, 
and  never  fail  to  charm  the  visitor. 

Suppose  you  are  in  the  newly  added  quarter  of  Cairo — say  at 
the  French  post-office — and  wish  to  visit  the  bazaars.  You  pass 
along  a  broad  and  macadamized  street,  with  French  shops  on 
one  side  and  a  row  of  unfinished  buildings  on  the  other,  that 
have  a  Parisian  appearance.  With  two  or  three  turnings  in 
streets  of  this  sort,  you  arrive  at  the  Mooskee,  a  broad  street — 
broad  for  the  Orient — leading  into  the  native  portion  of  Cairo. 

The  Mooskee  was  once  a  sort  of  narrow  lane,  but  was  widened 
by  one  of  the  former  Pashas,  not  without  opposition  on  the  part 
of  the  Moslems.  Here  the  rows  of  foreign  shops  continue  ;  they 
are  French,  Greek,  Italian,  English,  and  German,  arranged  with- 
out any  regard  to  nationalities.  At  first,  they  are  all  foreign  ; 
as  you  advance,  you  see  here   and   there  a  shop,  attended  by  a 

(478) 


THE    SHOPS    OF    CAIRO. 


479 


native ;  and  as  you  go  on  and  on,  the  natives  increase  in  num- 
bers, and  the  foreigners  decrease.  At  first  the  shops  have  win- 
.dows  and  doors,  and  counters,  like  those  in  London  or  Paris,  but. 
as  you  go  on,  you  find  here  and  there  one  on  the  plan  of  the 
Orient,  the  front  entirely  open,  and  the  goods  displayed  from 
within  to  a  customer  standing  in  the  street. 

Here  is  a  niche  where  was  once  a  window  ;  it  has  been  walled 
up,  and  the  stones  which  close  it  are  about  eighteen  inches  in- 
side the  line.^  This  space  would  be  of  no  use  in  the  West,  but 
here  in  the  East  it  has  been  utilized, 
and  we  find  a  couple  of  cobblers 
squatted  there,  with  their  benches  of 
tools  in  front  of  them.  Very  small 
are  these  benches,  and  as  for  the  tools, 
they  are  not  numerous.  Further  on 
we  see  open-fronted  shops,  tended  by 
foreigners,  and  close-fronted  shops 
tended  by  natives ;  then  we  come  to 
a  section  where  all  the  shops  are 
open,  and  natives  are  more  and  more 
numerous ;  finally,  by  turning, — we 
may  go  to  the  .right  or  left,  as  we 
choose, — under  the  shadow  of  a -decay- 
ing mosque,  we  enter  the  bazaars,  and 
the  habits  and  costumes  of  the  Ori-  ■ 
entals  rise  around  us. 

In  many  parts  of  the  Mooskee  there 
is  a  roof  thrown  quite  across  the  street, 
a  roof  consisting  mainly  of  timbers, 
with  openings  through  which  the  light  shoe  peddler  in  the  bazaar. 
can  stream  and  the  rain  can  fall.  Some  of  the  Oriental  cities  have 
the  streets  covered,  and  there  are  openings  here  and  there,  to 
admit  the  light.  Cairo  is  not  covered,  but  her  streets  are  so 
narrow,  and  the  house-tops  project  so  far,  that  in  many  places 
the  streets  are  rather  sombre,  even  at  mid-day.  Everywhere  you 
see  little  balconies  and  projecting  windows,  the  latter  covered 
with  wooden  grills  or  lattices,  through  which  women  can  see 
without  being  seen ;  however  brightly  the  lights  of  the  harem 


48o 


"MATTING    AND    FLEAS    IN    EQUAL    PORTIONS." 


may  burn  within,  they  cannot  be  observed  from  without.  The 
merchants  in  the  shops  find  this  dimness  to  their  advantage,  as 
it  gives  to  some  of  their  wares  the  appearance  of  a  fineness 
which  they  do  not  possess. 

Turning  to  the  left  out  of  the  Mooskee,  we  entered  the  bazaar 
of  Khan-Haleel,  so  named  after  a  Khan,  which  was  built  about 
six  hundred  years  ago,  and  is  still  standing  without  much  altera- 
tion.    We  entered  the  Khan   and   found  a  square  court   yard 

surrounded  by  rooms  opening 
upon  it,  where  the  merchants 
who  come  from  other  cities  dis- 
play their  wares  and  sleep  at 
night. 

The  Khan,  or  caravansary, 
is  of  less  consequence  now  than 
formerly,  throughout  the  parts 
of  the  East  that  have  been  in- 
vaded by  railways  ;  in  Aleppo, 
Bagdad  and  other  inland  places, 
its  character  is  still  retained, 
A  caravan  arrives  in  a  city,  and 
a  merchant  belonging  to  it  seeks 
a  caravansary,  hires  a  room  and 
displays  his  goods  to  whoever 
wishes  to  buy.  He  pays  a  small 
rental  and  takes  his  meals  where 
he  likes ;  in  the  smaller  towns 
the  master  of  the  Khan  will  sup- 
ply him  with  food,  but  not  so  in 
the  large  cities.  The  furni- 
ture of  the  Khan  consists  generally  of  matting  and  fleas  in 
about  equal  portions  ;  sometimes  there  is  no  matting,  but  the 
fleas  are  sure  to  be  on  hand,  and  on  the  entire  body  as  well. 
Orientals  do  not  mind  them,  and  I  am  half  inclined  to  believe 
that  they  would  be  unhappy  without  those  nimble  little  attendants. 
The  bazaars  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  Khan  Haleel  are 
mainly  devoted  to  the  sale  of  pipe  stems,  coffee  pots,  and  various 
odds  and  ends  of  nearly  everything.     You  can  buy  tobacco,  old 


LATTICED  WINDOWS — CAIRO. 


ORIENTAL   JEWELRY.  48 1 

coins,  boots,  and  jewelry  ;  and  there  are  several  shops  whose 
native  owners  are  devoted  to  the  sale  of  European  nick-nacks. 

Further  on,  you  come  to  the  jewelry  bazaar ;  we  entered  it  by 
a  low  door,  which  had  a  flooring  of  soft  mud,  that  induced  some 
very  careful  walking  and  brought  one  of  our  party  to  temporary 
grief. 

The  jewelry  bazaar  is  a  curious  place.  The  street  is  about  six 
feet  wide,  in  some  places  not  over  five,  and  you  stand  in  the 
street  or  sit  on  the  front  edge  of  the  shop  while  making  your 
bargains.  Not  more  than  two  or  three  persons  should  go  there 
together  ;  we  were  six,  and  we  blocked  up  the  whole  way,  so 
that  it  was  difficult  for  us  to  see  anything  and  for  others  to  get 
past.  The  shops  were  from  four  to  eight  feet  square,  and  the 
stock  was  partially  displayed  in  a  little  show-case  a  foot  square 
and  the  same  in  height,  and  partially  kept  in  a  safe  in  a  rear 
corner.  Generally  when  we  examined  the  articles  in  the  case, 
the  merchant,  who  was  squatted  near  it,  opened  his  safe  and 
took  out  something  from  it.  The  diminutive  extent  of  the  shop 
enabled  him  to  reach  safe,  show-case,  and  everything  else,  with- 
out leaving  the  place  where  he  was  seated.  In  most  cases, 
when  he  was  obliged  to  move  about,  he  did  it  without  rising. 
He  hopped  along  very  much  as  a  tame  seal  moves  about  in  a 
menagerie. 

The  selection  of  jewelry  is  not  large.  It  consists  of  ear-drops, 
brooches  and  bracelets  of  fine  filigree  work,  that  nearly  always 
includes  a  crescent,  with  a  few  stars  of  gold  or  little  drops  of 
real  or  imitation  turquoise.  Some  of  the  sets  are  so  arranged, 
that  the  necklace  and  brooch  form  one  piece,  that  can  be  taken 
apart  so  that  the  necklace  will  form  a  pair  of  bracelets  and  leave 
the  brooch  to  be  worn  separately.  Some  are  of  gold,  some  of 
silver,  and  some  of  silver  gilded,  and  the  sets  are  generally  quite 
cheap  in  comparison  with  the  prices  of  jewelry  in  America  and 
England. 

You  must  bargain  a  great  deal,  and  if  you  pay  anything  like 
the  price  asked  at  first,  you  are  sure  to  be  cheated.  Never  offer 
more  than  half  what  they  ask,  and  you  will  do  better  not  to  offer 
more  than  a  third  to  start  with ;  the  merchant  will  decline  at 
first ;  then  he  will  fall  slowly,  and  after  a  time  he  will  be  about 


482  HOW    THE   JEWELRY    IS    MADE, 

half  way  between  your  first  offer  and  his.  You  can  then  come 
ui3  a  little,  and  if  your  offer  is  at  all  reasonable,  he  will  close  with 
you,  though  frequently  not  till  after  you  have  walked  away. 

To  show  what  can  be  done  by  judicious  bargaining,  let  me 
cite  an  instance. 

One  of  our  party  admired  a  pair  of  ear-drops,  and  asked  the 
price. 

"  Twenty  francs,"  was  the  reply. 

Buyer  declined  to  be  a  buyer  at  that  figure,  but  ventured  to 
offer  five  francs.  The  merchant  put  the  jewelry  into  his  box 
and  shook  his  head.  Then  our  party  prepared  to  leave,  and  the 
merchant  fell  to  fifteen  francs.  Buyer  rose  to  six  francs,  and 
after  a  great  deal'  of  haggling,  they  met  at  seven  francs  and  a 
half.  In  another  instance,  a  trade  was  made  at  ten  francs  for 
something  for  which  thirty  francs  had  been  demanded,  and  fre- 
quently half,  or  more  than  half  the  first  price,  was  taken  off  to 
make  a  trade.  An  Oriental  merchant  expects  you  to  bargain  for 
his  goods,  and  is  quite  surprised  if  you  accept  his  offer  at  start- 
ing ;  and  if  you  do  it,  you  can  be  certain  that  you  have  deceived 
yourself. 

In  many  of  the  shops  the  makers  of  jewelry  were  at  work  ;  of 
course  we  were  interested  in  seeing  them.  The  man  sat  or 
squatted  on  the  floor,  in  front  of  a  small  anvil  ;  behind  him  was 
a  little  furnace,  with  a  charcoal  fire,  which  was  kept  alive  by  a 
bellows,  worked  by  a  boy  or  by  the  foot  of  the  man.  The  bel- 
lows was  in  keeping  with  the  rest  of  the  equipment  of  the 
place — sometimes  it  was  a  bag  of  goatskin,  and  sometimes  it  had 
the  shape,  and  was  about  the  size  of  a  Chinese  lantern.  The 
tools  consisted  of  hammers  and  pinchers,  and  the  men  showed 
great  dexterity  in  working  them.  Gold  and  silver  are  made  to 
take  curious  shapes  in  the  hands  of  these  fabricants,  and  some 
of  their  performances  appeared  akin  to  magic.  They  had  little 
turning  lathes  in  some  of  the  shops,  and  occasionally  a  man 
would  hold  with  his  toe  the  article  which  he  was  endeavoring  to 
put  into  shape.  The  jewelry  bazaar  has  many  windings,  and, 
somewhat  to  our  surprise,  we  came  out  after  many  crooks  and 
turns  by  a  passage-way,  only  a  few  feet  from  where  we  had 
entered. 


ORIENTAL    TINKERS. 


483 


Not  far  away  from  the  jewelers  is  the  bazaar  of  the  tinsmiths 
and  workers  in  brass.  Their  shops  are  small,  like  all  shops  in 
the  Orient,  and  their  furnaces  were  much  on  the  same  style  as 
those  of  the  workers  in  gold  and  silver.  They  were  hammering 
brass  and  tin  into  a  variety  of  shapes,  the  most  common  article 
being  the  pots  for  making  coffee,  and  the  little  stands  that  hold 
the  cups.    They  bring  coffee  to  you  in  the  Orient  in  a  cup  about 


BREAD   BAKERS  AND   SELLERS   IN   THE   BAZAARS. 

the  size  of  a  small  egg ;  there  is  no  saucer,  but  in  its  place  there 
is  a  little  socket  of  the  general  shape  of  a  flower  vase,  and  into 
this  the  cup  fits  very  neatly.  They  must  wear  out,  or  become 
lost,  at  a  remarkably  rapid  rate  to  judge  by  the  quantities  that 
were  offered  for  sale. 

Brass  pans  and  pots  for  cooking  purposes  are  in  demand,  and 
so  are  plates,  on  which  to  serve  up  sweetmeats.     In  some  of  the 


484  TRICKS    OF    TRADE. 

shops  they  tried  to  sell  us  some  very  ancient  plates  of  Saracenic 
manufacture,  and  the  rapidity  with  which  they  reduced  their 
fio-ures,  led  me  to  suspect  that  the  articles  were  skilful  imita- 
tions, rather  than  genuine.  The  brass  and  tin  bazaars  are  quite 
extensive,  and  the  trade  in  these  articles  is  evidently  large. 

Constantly,  on  our  way,  we  were  beset  by  men,  who  wanted  to 
guide  us  and  act  as  intermediaries  in  trade.  These  fellows  hang 
around  the  bazaars  and  make  a  living  in  two  ways  ;  they  get  a 
fee  from  the  stranger  and  a  commission  from  the  merchant,  and 
the  commission  is  generally  the  most  important  of  the  two.  It 
makes  little  difference  whether  you  take  them  as  interpreters,  or 
hire  a  dragoman  from  the  hotel  ;  both  will  have  a  commission, 
and  sometimes  the  dragoman  is  worse  than  the  regular  frequenter 
of  the  bazaars.  After  a  little  practice,  and  by  picking  up  the 
numerals  and  a  few  other  words  of  Arabic,  I  was  able  to  do  my 
own  shopping,  without  the  intercession  of  a  guide,  and  found  I 
could  get  along  much  better  when  alone.  Many  of  the  mer- 
chants understand  the  French  or  Italian  numerals,  or  what  is 
more  frequently,  a  combination  of  the  two  ;  with  a  lingual  hash, 
composed  of  Arabic,  French,  and  Italian,  one  can  manage  to 
trade  very  fairly. 

You  can  barter  leisurely,  or  you  can  go  rapidly  through  many 
bazaars.  You  can  go  in  the  Hamzowec,  or  silk  and  cloth  bazaar, 
where  silks,  cloths,  and  similar  goods  are  sold,  mostly  of  Euro- 
pean manufacture  ;  but  as  the  dealers  are  all  Christians  and 
scoundrels,  and  the  articles  they  sell  are  familiar  to  us,  the  place 
is  not  particularly  interesting. 

You  can  go  into  the  Terbeeak,  or  perfume  bazaar  ;  and  it  is 
here  that  you  buy,  or  think  you  buy,  the  famous  "  otto  of  rose." 
I  spent  the  whole  of  one  morning,  bargaining  for  some  of  it,  and 
at  last  bought  half  a  dozen  bottles,  only  to  be  told  when  I 
reached  the  hotel,  that  I  had  been  cheated  in  the  price.  There 
is  a  wonderful  odor  of  sandal  wood  and  otto  of  rose,  and  a  dozen 
other  things  in  this  bazaar,  and  the  rows  of  bottles  and  jars 
behind  the  turbaned  and  squatting  dealers,  form  a  picture  that 
is  by  no  means  unpleasant.  Strips  of  gilded  paper  are  hung  in 
front  of  these  bazaars,  as  a  sign  of  the  articles  sold  within.  I 
was  unable  to  ascertain  the  meaning  of  them,  and  concluded 


A    QUEER    COLLECTION. 


485 


that  they  were  arbitrary  in  their  character,  like  the  striped  poles 
that  we  place  in  front  of  a  barber's  shop.  Here,  as  everywhere 
else,  you  must  haggle  a  good  deal  about  the  price,  and  keep  a 
sharp  eye,  to  see  that  you  get  the  article  you  have  bought. 

There  are  different   localities    for   different   goods.     In  one 
bazaar  you  find  cotton  and  silk  stuffs,  and  in  another  they  have 


AN    AUCTIONEER    IN    THE   BAZAARS. 

garments  made  of  the  same  material.  In  one  there  are  shoes 
and  slippers,  in  another  saddles,  and  in  another  flags  and  tents. 
Here  you  find  silk  and  gold  cord  and  lace,  and  there  you  can 
discover  stores  of  precious  stones.  Here  are  sugar,  almonds, 
and  dried  fruit,  and  there  are  tobacco  and  coffee.  Here  is  the 
market  for  guns,  swords,  and  arms  of  various  kinds,  and  there  is 
the  market  for  fowls  and  vegetables.  In  the  arms  bazaar  you  may 
28 


^86  AN    ORIENTAL    AUCTION. 

find  a  wilderness  of  old  weapons,  and  not  unlikely  you  may  pur- 
chase a  sword  that  flashed  in  the  days  of  Haroun-al-Rasheed,  and 
helped  to  spread  the  faith  of  Mohammed  through  the  sleepy  and 
careless  East. 

Among  the  dealers  in  gems,  you  will  find  diamonds  and  tur- 
quoises in  great  number,  and  they  will  be  drawn  one  by  one 
from  the  pocket  of  the  merchant  and  placed  in  a  little  box 
which  he  holds  in  his  hand.  If  you  like,  you  may  visit  the 
bazaar  where  old  clothes  are  sold,  and  if  you  have  a  fancy  for 
garments  that  have  done  duty  on  Moslem  backs,  your  desires 
can  be  met  with  the  utmost  ease.  And  don't  fail  to  come  to  the 
bazaars  on  Mondays  and  Thursdays,  and  witness  the  sale  of 
goods  at  auction.  It  is  not  like  an  American  auction,  where  the 
dealer  stands  in  one  place  and  has  the  buyers  clustering  round 
him.  In  this  case,  the  auctioneers  go  through  the  market,  car- 
rying the  goods  and  calling  out  the  prices  that  have  been  offered. 
This  mode  of  selling  gives  a  fine  opportunity  for  fraud,  and  it  is 
quite  likely  that  a  great  deal  of  it  is  practised. 

Though  pretty  well  tired  out  when  through  with  the  bazaars, 
we  took  a  turn  at  the  opera  house  in  the  evening.  I  have  seen 
opera  and  ballet  in  pretty  nearly  every  city  where  they  make  a 
point  of  giving  them  finely,  and  before  coming  here,  I  believed 
I  had  seen  the  very  best  in  existence.  The  opera  house  at  Cairo 
is  not  a  large  one,  but  it  is  quite  sufficient  for  the  wants  of  the 
present  population  of  theatre-goers.  The  seats  and  boxes  are 
well  arranged,  and  I  purposely  went  to  various  localities  during 
the  performance,  and  found  I  could  hear  about  equally  well 
everywhere.  There  is  a  strong  company,  especially  rich  in  tenor 
and  soprano  voices  It  was  here  that  I  heard  the  opera  peculiar 
to  Cairo,  under  the  name  of  Aida.  Aida  was  written  by  Verdi, 
to  the  Khedive's  special  orders  ;  the  scene  is  laid  in  Egypt,  dur- 
ing the  period  of  the  greatest  power  of  the  Pharaohs,  and  the 
special  locations  are  at  Memphis  and  Thebes.  The  piece  was 
literally  put  on  the  stage  without  regard  to  expense  ;  the  cos- 
tumes and  scenery  were  made  with  the  utmost  care  and  atten- 
tion to  details,  and  in  every  respect  they  conform  to  the  period 
represented.  Thus,  in  the  scenery,  the  temples  and  the  services 
in  them  are  restored,  the  actors  are  dressed  as  were  the  ancient 


THE    OPERA   AT    CAIRO.  487 

Egyptians,  and  the  dialogue  is  made  to  conform  to  the  manners 
and  customs  of  the  time.  As  you  sit  in  the  parquette,  or  in  a 
comfortable  box,  you  are  carried  back  four  thousand  years  to  the 
days  when  Isis  and  Osiris  were  the  divinities  of  the  land. 

Careful  studies  were  made  of  the  sculptures  and  paintings  on 
the  walls  of  the  temples  and  tombs  of  Upper  Egypt,  so  as  to 
secure  fidelity  in  all  the  details.  The  rehearsals  had  evidently 
been  numerous  and  thorough  ;  I  never  heard  in  London  or  St. 
Petersburg,  Paris  or  Vienna,  Milan  or  Naples,  an  opera  better 
rendered,  while  I  have  heard  a  great  many  whose  rendition  was 
far  behind  it  in  point  of  excellence.  Aida  is  popular  with  the 
resident  opera  goers,  and  if  a  stranger  wishes  to  see  a  Cairene 
audience  at  its  very  best,  he  should  attend  one  of  the  represen- 
tations of  this  opera.  The  boxes  and  parquette  will  be  well 
filled,  and  he  may  possibly  get  a  view  of  the  solid  form  and  in- 
telligent face  of  the  Khedive.  Opposite  the  vice-regal  box  there 
are  several  boxes  reserved  for  the  ladies  of  the  harem;  there 
is  a  screen  of  wire-gauze  in  front  of  them,  so  that  the  fair  occu- 
pants can  see,  without  being  seen. 

There  is  a  ballet  called  the  "  Prodigal  Son,"  with  the  scene 
laid  in  Egypt  and  with  the  costumes  of  the  Pharaonic  days.  It 
rivals  Aida  in  magnificence,  and  is  generally  sure  of  a  good  au- 
dience or  rather  vidience  as,  following  the  Oriental  and  Euro- 
pean custom,  it  is  all  in  pantomime,  with  never  a  spoken  word. 

The  ballet  troupe  is  quite  large,  and  the  action  of  the  piece 
goes  on  incessantly  for  about  an  hour  and  a  quarter.  The  cos- 
tumes and  scenery  are  appropriate, — the  former  scanty,  as  with 
the  ballet  everywhere,  and  the  latter  rich  and  typical  of  the  place 
and  time  represented.  The  cost  of  maintaining  this  troupe  must 
be  great,  and  evidently  the  ladies  composing  it  are  well  paid,  as 
they  drive  daily  in  fine  carriages  on  the  Shoobra  road,  and  dress 
like  countesses,  who  have  fortunes  in  their  own  right. 

There  is  a  small  theatre  opposite  the  opera  house,  where  they 
give  French  comedy  and  light  operas,  three  or  four  times  a  week, 
and  give  them  very  well.  The  opera  and  ballet  are  very  popular 
with  the  ladies  of  the  Khedive's  harem  ;  they  prefer  the  music 
and  dancing  of  the  Occident  to  that  of  the  Orient,  just  as  they 
prefer  the  fashions  of  Paris  to  those  of  Bagdad  and  Khiva, 


CHAPTER     XXXIX. 

ADVENTURES  WITH  A  DONKEY.— A  DAY  AT  THE  RACES. 

A  "  Syce  ;"  what  is  he  ? — A  Man  with  a  Queer  Dress  and  Large  Calves — A  Gor- 
geous Turnout — An  Escort  of  Eunuchs — Veiled  Beauties — A  Flirtation  and  its 
Consequences — The  Tale  of  a  Dropped  Handkerchief — The  Donkey  as  a  National 

^  Beast — A  Tricky  Brute  and  an  Agile  Driver — An  Upset  in  the  Mud — Astonishing 
the  Natives — A  Specimen  of  Arabic  Wit — Going  to  the  Races — The  Grand  Stand 
— A  Dromedary  Race — An  Aristocratic  Camel — The  Arrival  of  the  Khedive — 
Starting  Up  the  Dromedaries — Cutting  an  Empress. 


A  STRANGER  is  impressed  during  his  first  days  in  Cairo 
with  the  spectacle  of  runners  in  front  of  carriages  to  warn 
people  to  get  out  of  the  way.  These  fellows  have  a  picturesque 
dress  and  muscular  legs,  and  their  duty  is  to  clear  the  way,  by 
keeping  a  few  yards  in  advance  and  warning  people  that  a  car- 
riage is  coming.  An  appendage  of  this  sort  is  called  a  syce,  and 
formerly  it  was  necessary  that  he  should  be  a  native  born  Egyp- 
tian, but  at  present  a  Nubian  may  aspire  to  the  position,  and  it 
is  not  unusual  to  see  syces  of  the  complexion  of  charcoal  in  front 
of  elegant  carriages.  Public  fiacres  and  ordinary  private  car- 
riages have  each  but  a  single  syce,  but  the  carriages  of  the 
Khedive  and  all  official  turnouts  must  have  a  pair  of  syces  run- 
ning side  by  side. 

The  syce  carries  a  stick,  which  he  holds  perpendicularly  in  the 
air.  As  he  goes  along  he  warns  people  by  his  shouts  ;  it  occa- 
sionally happens  that  a  crowd  of  common  Arabs  will  be  in  the 
way  with  their  donkeys,  and  if  they  do  not  move  at  the  vocal 
admonition,  the  stick  is  brought  into  use  with  no  savor  of  mild- 
ness. 

(488) 


THE    CARRIAGES    OF    THE    HAREM. 


489 


The  most  gorgeous  turnouts  in  Cairo  were,  of  course,  those 
belonging  to  the  reigning  family,  and  used  on  state  occasions. 
The  Khedive  ordinarily  rides  with  very  little  display ;  he  has  a 
two-horse  carriage,  open  or  closed  according  to  the  weather  or 
other  circumstances,  two  syces  in  front  and  two  outriders  or 
household  guards  behind  him.  The  carriages  of  the  harem  are 
quite  as  gorgeous  as  his,  and  they  have  the  additional  escort  of 


A   SYCE. 

one  or  two  eunuchs,  sometimes  on  horseback,  and  at  others 
seated  on  the  box  with  the  driver.  Sometimes  the  blinds  are 
drawn,  and  again  they  are  open,  but  in  either  case  the  face  of 
the  fair  occupant  cannot  be  seen,  as  it  is  invariably  covered  with 
a  veil, 

The  eyes  only  are  visible  and   they  are  generally  pretty,    I 
think  I  may  say  invariably  so,  and  have  that  soft,  melting  Ian- 


490  BEAUTY  OF  THE  HAREM  LADIES. 

guor  for  which  the  Orient  is  famous.  Concealment  has  its  ad- 
vantages here  as  elsewhere  ;  what  we  can  see  is  rarely  as  beau- 
tiful as  what  we  do  not  see.  The  unattainable  is  always  of  more 
value  than  what  is  within  our  reach.  Possibly  all  the  women  of 
the  harem  are  not  beautiful,  but  I  had  the  word  of  a  lady  who 
has  been  in  the  sacred  enclosure,  that  there  are  faces  there 
whose  beauty  is  rarely  equalled  in  the  Occident,  and  there  was 
one  that  roused  my  informant  to  a  pitch  of  enthusiasm  more 
appropriate  for  a  young  and  ardent  man. 

Some  of  these  carriages  of  the  harem  have  been  associated 
with  scandals  of  a  mediocre  character.  I  was  told  of  one  whose 
occupant  used  to  drop  her  veil  to  a  dashing  young  officer  when 
promenading  on  the  Shoobra  Road,  and  on  one  occasion  let  fall 
an  embroidered  and  perfumed  handkerchief,  which  he  picked  up 
and  retained. 

As  the  story  goes,  he  was  imprudent  enough  to  speak  of  the 
adventure  and  to  show  the  trophy,  and  one  day  he  was  told  his 
presence  was  no  longer  needed  in  the  Egyptian  army,  but  that 
his  resignation  would  be  accepted.  How  much  truth  there  is  in 
the  story  I  cannot  say,  I  am  sure  ;  I  was  not  present ;  never  saw 
officer  or  handkerchief  to  my  knowledge,  and  neither  have  I  ever 
seen  the  veiled  beauty.  But  who  among  us  would  have  neglected 
to  peep  at  her  face  if  he  had  the  opportunity  ? 

The  beast  par  excellence  of  Egypt  is  the  donkey ;  he  ought  to 
have  a  place  on  the  national  coat-of-arms,  as  much  so  as  the  llama 
has  on  that  of  Peru.  The  horses  of  Egypt  are  magnificent,  some 
of  pure  Arabian,  and  some  of  a  cross  between  English  and  Ara- 
bian stock,  and  are  famous  for  their  speed  and  beauty.  But  they 
are  a  luxury  that  not  everybody  can  afford,  as  their  support  re- 
quires a  constant  outlay,  not  to  speak  of  the  first  cost  of  the  prop- 
erty. But  the  donkey  is  universal,  and  everybody  can  have  one, 
unless  he  is  the  poorest  of  the  poor. 

At  every  hotel  door  there  are  groups  of  them  ready  saddled  at 
all  hours  of  the  day,  and  you  can  hire  them  cheaply.  If  you  can 
make  a  bargain  in  advance  you  can  hire  a  donkey  at  three  or 
four  francs  a  day,  inclusive  of  the  boy,  to  drive  him,  though  the 
latter  generally  looks  for  backsheesh  in  addition  to  the  price  of 
the  beast  and  saddle.     I  have  hired  donkeys  frequently  for  half 


THE  NATIONAL  BEAST  OF  EGYPT.  493 

a  franc  an  hour,  though  the  hotel  keepers  tell  you  that  a  franc  an 
hour  is  the  proper  fare. 

Most  of  the  excursions  in  and  around  Cairo  must  be  made  on 
these  animals,  and  even  in  many  places  where  you  can  take  a  car- 
riage the  donkey  is  preferable.  You  can  ride  in  the  narrow  lanes 
and  among  the  bazaars,  or  you  can  go  into  the  open  country  at  a 
gallop,  as  though  pursued  by  a  wolf,  or  a  guilty  conscience.  No 
matter  how  fast  you  go,  the  boy  will  keep  up  with  you,  and  he 
never  seems  to  be  out  of  breath.  If  you  want  to  go  slowly  he 
does  not  understand  you,  and  will  continue  to  cluck  and  strike 
the  beast  at  the  very  moment  you  are  expostulating  with  him. 

One  day  I  took  a  donkey  for  an  afternoon  ride  to  old  Cairo,  and 
explained  to  the  boy  that  I  was  in  no  hurry,  and  wished  to  go 
gently.  "  I  understand,"  he  said,  and  as  we  started  he  hit  the 
donkey  a  violent  blow,  that  sent  him  off  on  a  gallop. 

Two  or  three  times  I  expostulated,  and  finally  I  threatened  to 
thrash  him  with  my  cane  if  he  struck  the  donkey  again  without 
orders. 

"  I  understand,"  he  said,  "  no  strike  donkey  no  more,"  and  we 
were  off  again. 

Within  two  minutes  he  struck  the  animal.  The  promised 
thrashing  was  administered,  and  even  that  was  not  enough  to 
make  the  boy  mindful  of  what  I  wanted,  and  several  times  he  in- 
voluntarily hurried  the  animal  ahead.  It  was  the  force  of  habit, 
which  to  him  was  perfectly  uncontrollable. 

The  donkey  is  a  patient  beast;  he  never  kicks  or  runs  away, 
never  takes  fright,  never  asks  for  backsheesh,  and  he  can  bear  a 
burden  that  seems  out  of  all  proportion  to  his  size.  He  does  not 
get  drunk  or  stay  away  from  home  by  circumstances  which  he 
cannot  control,  and  he  can  be  boarded  and  lodged  at  a  very  cheap 
rate.  His  food  consists  of  beans  and  chopped  straw,  with  an  oc- 
casional bonne  bonchc  of  fresh  cut  grass,  of  which  you  see  great 
loads  coming  daily  into  the  city  on  the  backs  of  camels  and  don- 
keys. 

The  pace  of  the  donkey  is  a  walk,  an  amble,  or  a  gallop  accord- 
ing to  circumstances,  and  at  whatever  speed  he  is  going  he  is 
generally  as  easy  as  a  cradle.  The  natives  ride  without  stirrups, 
owing  to  the  donkey's  tendency  to  stumble  ;  he  does  not  fall  very 


494 


"progressive     donkeys. 


often,  but  you  never  know  when  he  will  go  down  in  a  heap  under 
you,  and  he  is  most  likely  to  do  this  when  at  full  speed,  the  very 
time  when  you  least  relish  this  sort  of  business. 

When  I  reached  Cairo  I  was  not  up  to  the  dodge  of  riding 
without  my  feet  in  the  stirrups,  but  I  soon  concluded  that  I  had 
better  learn.  One  afternoon  I  had  a  donkey  that  was  very  good, 
from  a  progressive  point  of  view.  There  was  a  party  of  us,  and 
we  went  at  a  gallop,  and  my  beast  was  ahead  most  of  the  time. 
Suddenly  he  went  down,  very  much  as  a  wet  towel  falls  on  the 


NOT   UP  TO    THE   DODGE. 


floor  when  you  drop  it  from  your  hand,  and  I  went  down  like  an- 
other wet  towel  when  it  is  not  dropped  but  flung  into  a  corner. 

Had  my  feet  been  out  of  the  stirrups  they  would  have  touched 
the  ground  as  I  fell,  and  I  should  have  been  standing  erect  and 
dignified,  and  could  have  contemplated  my  donkey  in  a  heap  as 
Xerxes  contemplated  the  remains  of  his  fleet  at  Salamis.  But  I 
was  comfortably  fixed  in  the  stirrups,  and  so  I  went  forward  and 
turned  about  eleven-sixteenths  of  a  somersault  before  I  settled 
into  a  sprawling  position  on  and  in  the  sand,  to  the  great  delight 
of   the  multitude   who  are   never  happier   than  when  seeing  a 


"NO    GOOD    FOR    ONE    FRANC."  495 

Stranger  make  an  ass  of  himself.  I  got  up  and  found  myself  un- 
injured, though  I  presented  the  appearance  of  having  been  used 
as  a  street  sweeping  machine. 

You  may  think  this  is  drawing  the  donkey  business  to  a  con- 
siderable length,  but  you  wouldn't  think  so  if  you  knew  what  a 
prominent  place  the  animal  has  in  the  life  and  locomotion  of 
modern  Egypt.  But  through  fear  of  wearying  you,  I  will  stop 
now  ;  only  let  me  tell  you  of  the  wit  of  one  of  the  drivers. 

One  day  I  hired  a  donkey  for  a  franc  to  make  a  journey  for 
which  the  driver  demanded  three  francs  at  the  outset.  When  the 
bargain  was  concluded  we  started,  but  the  beast  was  v^ery  slow, 
and  I  said  to  the  driver  that  his  steed  was  not  good. 

"  Yes,  donkey  good,"  was  his  reply.  "  Give  donkey  three  francs, 
he  good  donkey  ;  he  no  good  for  one  franc." 

Soon  after  my  arrival  we  had  the  pleasure  of  attending  the 
horse  races  and  noticing  some  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  country. 

The  track  for  the  Cairo  races  is  two  or  three  miles  out  of  the 
city,  on  a  large  plain  to  the  right  of  the  Abooseer  Road. 

We  left  our  donkeys  in  charge  of  their  drivers,  and  bought 
tickets  for  the  Grand  Stand.  The  spectators  were  a  mi.xcd  lot 
of  natives  and  Europeans,  nearly  all  the  former  being  in  European 
dress,  with  the  exception  of  the  fez  or  red  cap,  which  covers  the 
head  at  all  times,  whether  in  doors  or  out.  A  good  many  eunuchs 
were  there  and  mingled  freely  with  the  crowd  in  and  around  the 
stand.  They  were  nearly  all  tall — some  of  them  unusually  long 
in  the  legs — were  clad  a  la  European,  and  were  rather  gorgeous 
in  the  matter  of  watch  chain.  One  who  stood  near  me  had  a 
double  length  vest  chain,  a  fob  chain,  and  a  chain  around  his 
neck.  If  there  had  been  any  other  way  of  wearing  a  chain  I  pre- 
sume he  would  have  adopted  that  also. 

Many  of  these  neutral  gentlemen  were  active  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  races  ;  some  of  them  made  considerable  wagers, 
and  one  of  them,  taller  and  rather  older  than  the  rest,  appeared 
to  exercise  considerable  authority  over  the  jockeys,  and  super- 
intended their  mounting  and  weighing.  The  jockeys  were  of  all 
colors  and  nationalities  ;  there  were  English,  French,  and  Italian 
jockeys  ;  and  there  were  Arab,  Egyptian,  and  Nubian  jockeys. 
There  was  comparatively  little  betting  over  the  result,  and  quite 


496  THE  HAREM  LADIES  AT  THE  RACES. 

an  absence  of  the  yelling  and  hooting  heard  at  all  races  in  Eng- 
land and  at  some  in  America. 

Just  before  the  commencement  of  the  races,  a  dozen  carriages 
came  upon  the  ground,  bringing  the  ladies  of  the  harem.  A  sep- 
arate space  was  assigned  to  them  ;  in  this  space  the  carriages 
were  driven  and  a  rope  was  drawn  around,  and  guards  were  sta- 
tioned to  keep  out  intruders. 


AN    EGYPTIAN    EUNUCH. 


The  ladies  remained  all  the  time  in  their  carriages,  and  as 
they  were  closely  veiled  and  the  blinds  of  the  carriages  were  par- 
tially closed,  nobody  got  a  peep  at  them.  It  is  quite  an  innova- 
tion for  them  to  come  to  the  races  at  all ;  the  seclusion  of  the 
women  of  the  Orient  is  so  great  that  a  man  would  usually  be  as 
likely  to  think  of  taking  his  dog  to  see  an  entertainment  as  of 
taking  his  wives,  or  any  one  of  them.     I  believe  the  day  is  not 


A    DROMEDARY    RACE. 


497 


far  distant  when  the  ladies  of  Egypt  will  discard  the  veil  and  go 
with  uncovered  faces  like  their  Occidental  sisters.  The  Khedive 
has  done  much  in  the  way  of  assimilating  his  people  with  those 
of  Europe,  and  he  will  do  more  as  time  goes  on. 

On  the  second  day  the  affair  opened  with  a  race  of  dromeda- 
ries. Four  of  these  animals  were  entered,  but  only  three  put  in 
an  appearance.  They  were  not  beautiful  beasts  ;  I  don't  believe 
one  of  them,  in  his  wildest  moments,  ever  imagines  that  he  is 
handsome,  and  he  ought  not  to  do  so  if  he  sets  himself  down  to 
tame  deliberation.  The  dromedary  is  a  sort  of  fine  edition  of 
the  camel ;  he  bears  the  same  relation  to  a  camel  that  a  setter  or 
terrier  bears  to  that  "  yaller"  dog  of  America.  He  kneels  to  be 
mounted,  and  he  starts  off  at  a  swinging  pace,  arching  his  neck 
rather  gracefully,  and  not  appearing  to  be  in  a  hurry. 

The  saddle  for  racing  is  a  sort  of  hollow  dish,  in  which  the 
rider  sits.  He  does  not  straddle  the  beast  as  we  would  mount  a 
horse,  but  he  sits  in  this  trough,  or  dish,  and  crosses  his  legs  in 
front  of  him.  His  place  is  not  an  uncomfortable  one,  except  that 
it  is  pretty  high  in  the  air  and  a  fall  from  it  would  be  no  joke. 
Since  I  saw  that  race  I  have  done  some  camel  travelling,  and 
have  my  opinions,  but  of  that  I  will  speak  by  and  by. 

These  three  dromedaries  started  off  very  well  at  the  word  of 
command,  and  went  around  the  track  at  the  rate  of  twelve  miles 
an  hour,  though  they  did  not  appear  to  be  doing  half  as  much. 

The  dromedary  race  did  not  begin  until  after  the  arrival  of  the 
Khedive,  who  came  in  a  carriage  with  his  sons  and  some  of  his 
ministers,  and  was  accompanied  byadozenor  so  of  riders,  and  there 
was  a  good  deal  of  bowing  and  hat  lifting,  but  there  were  no 
cheers.  Cheering  after  the  Western  plan  does  not  seem  to  be  in 
vogue  in  Egypt,  and  certainly  it  would  not  take  well  with  the 
dignified  demeanor  of  the  Orient. 

The  Khedive  acknowledged  the  compliment  by  a  bow  to  the 
right  and  the  left  as  he  entered  the  grounds,  and  the  carriage 
moved  rapidly  to  the  stand  set  apart  for  him  and  his  friends.  On 
the  stand  he  mingled  unceremoniously  with  the  rest  of  the  partv. 
Among  them  there  was  one  lady,  the  Duchess  of  Parma,  to  whom 
he  was  courteously  polite.  Quite  a  contrast,  this,  I  thought  to 
the  conduct  of  the  Sultan,  whom  I  saw  in  1867,  at  Paris,  rudely 


498  INSULTING   AN    EMPRESS. 

walk  past  the  Empress  without  offering  his  arm  or  even  speak- 
ing to  her.  She  was  a  woman  and  an  Infidel  Christian  ;  no  one 
could  expect  the  commander  of  the  Faithful  to  be  polite  to  her. 

There  are  different  ways  of  regarding  the  subject  From  our 
standpoint  we  think  that  Mohammedanism  degrades  woman  be- 
low her  proper  level,  by  secluding  her  and  by  treating  her  not  as 
a  companion  of  man,  but  as  a  thing  for  his  amusement,  or  for  the 
perpetuation  of  the  human  race,  as  the  soil  is  made  to  perpetuate 
the  fruits  of  the  earth.  And  the  Mohammedan  looking  at  us 
thinks  that  we  raise  women  above  their  proper  level  and  allow 
them  too  much  part  in  our  affairs.  But  the  Western  theory  is 
yearly  gaining  more  adherents,  and  the  position  of  woman  is 
yearly  becoming  more  exalted.  And  the  enlightened  ruler  of 
Egypt  is  the  first  Mohammedan  Prince  or  King  who  has  ven- 
tured to  show  in  public  a  feeling  of  respect  toward  the  gentler 
and  prettier  half  of  humanity. 


CHAPTER      XL. 

THE  PASHA  AND  THE  PRIESTS.— EGYPTIAN  LANGUAGE  — 
SCHOOLS  AND   RELIGIOUS  CEREMONIES. 

Egypt  and  her  relations  with  Turkey — The  Army  and  Navy — Egyptian  history  boiled 
down — The  reigning  family — Wonderful  Relics — Mohammed  Ali  as  a  ruler — The 
Pasha  and  the  priests — Ordering  a  Wedding — Married  on  short  notice — Gratifying 
the  Empress  Eugenie — An  Arab  school-room — A  college  with  nine  thousand  stu- 
dents— A  jaw-breaking  language — How  to  indite  an  epistle  in  Arabic — The  cara- 
van to  Mecca — Going  on  a  pilgrimage — A  horrible  ceremony — Trampling  on  der- 
vishes— The  "  Bride  of  the  Nile" — Extraordinary  customs. 

EGYPT  is  sufficiently  independent  to  have  a  government  of 
her  own,  and  to  maintain  a  standing  army.  She  pays  an 
annual  tribute  to  Turkey  of  half  a  million  pounds  sterling,  but 
the  amount  varies  somewhat,  according  to  circumstances.  In 
return  for  this  tribute  she  is  allowed  to  do  pretty  much  as  she 
pleases  in  the  way  of  contracting  loans  and  making  internal  im- 
►provements.  The  army  is  restricted  to  fifteen  thousand  men,  but 
by  means  of  an  arrangement  for  short  terms  of  service  it  is  prac- 
tically four  or  five  times  as  large.  The  organization  of  the  army 
is  very  much  on  the  European  model,  and  the  troops  are  drilled 
according  to  the  modern  systems  of  tactics. 

The  artillery  arm  of  the  service  has  been  made  as  effective  as 
possible,  and  the  batteries  consist  of  breech-loading  cannon,  from 
Krupp's  manufactory  in  Germany.  The  navy  is  not  large,  but 
the  ships  that  compose  it  are  of  the  most  approved  construc- 
tion, and  their  armament  is  of  steel  breech-loaders,  like  the  land 
batteries. 

(499) 


500  BOILED    DOWN    HISTORY. 

The  infantry  are  equipped  with  improved  rifles,  and  the  cavalry 
has  a  revolving  carbine,  with  a  removable  stock,  so  that  the 
weapons  may  be  changed  at  will  into  a  pistol  or  a  rifle.  In  the 
last  few  years,  the  government  has  availed  itself  of  the  services 
of  many  foreign  officers,  the  most  of  them  from  America.  These 
are  scattered  among  all  branches  of  the  service,  the  most  of  them 
being  in  the  corps  of  engineers.  Under  their  management  the 
country  is  being  carefully  surveyed,  and  an  elaborate  map  is  in 
preparation. 

Egypt  has  had  a  great  many  rulers.  The  dynasties  of  Kings 
of  ancient  Egypt  were  no  less  than  thirty-four  in  number,  and 
then  came  the  Romans  about  the  beginning  of  the  Christian  Era. 
They  reigned  for  a  few  hundred  years,  then  the  country  was  con- 
quered by  the  Arabs,  and  later  on,  it  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
Turks.  Near  the  end  of  the  last  century,  it  was  invaded  by  the 
French,  they  remained  about  three  years  only,  when  they  were 
expelled  by  the  English,  and  soon  after  their  arrival  the  renowned 
Mohammed  Ali  was  made  the  ruling  pasha. 

He  reigned  from  1806  to  1848,  when  he  became  imbecile,  and 
was  succeeded  by  his  son  Ibrahim  Pasha,  who  died  after  a  reign 
of  two  months,  Ibrahim  was  followed  by  his  nephew  Abbas 
Pasha  who  reigned  from  1848  to  1854,  and  was  succeeded  by  the 
fourth  son  of  Mohammed  Ali,  under  the  name  of  Said  Pasha. 
In  1863  Said  was  succeeded  by  the  present  ruler  Ismail  Pasha, 
second  son  of  Ibrahim  Pasha,  the  eldest  having  been  drowned  in 
the  Nile  in  1856. 

There  you  have  Egyptian  history  boiled  down  into  a  small 
space.  I  have  not  thought  any  reader  would  care  to  know  the 
names  of  all  the  kings  of  Egypt  from  Menes,  five  thousand  years 
before  Christ,  to  Ismail  nearly  two  thousand  years  after  Christ. 

Some  were  jolly  old  fellows,  who  lived  as  luxuriously  as  they 
knew  how,  though  I  dare  say,  none  of  them  ever  tasted  raw  oys- 
ters on  the  shell,  or  prairie  chicken  broiled  and  on  toast.  They 
used  to  dress  rather  elaborately,  and  they  built  some  magnificent 
temples  and  tombs,  which  still  remain  to  be  wondered  at  by 
modern  mortals. 

No  construction  of  the  present  day  can  begin  to  compare  with 
them  in  grandeur,  but  of  this  I  shall  have  more  to  say  by  and  by. 


MOHAMMED    ALL  5OI 

The  kings  were  buried  with  great  care,  but  their  tombs  have  been 
plundered  in  modern  times,  so  that  very  Httle  of  the  royal  relics 
can  be  found. 

Occasionally  they  stumble  on  something  and  it  is  at  once  put 
into  the  museum  at  Cairo.  Through  the  kindness  of  the  direc- 
tor of  this  museum  I  was  one  day  allowed  to  hold  in  my  hand 
the  heart  of  one  of  the  most  famous  of  the  warrior  kings  of  the 
XlXth  Dynasty.  It  wasn't  much  of  a  heart,  a  dried  and  ban- 
daged affair  of  little  consequence,  but  it  was  no  common  occur- 
rence to  grasp  it,  and  remember  that  it  once  beat  beneath  the 
breast  of  a  great  warrior,  who  lived  and  loved,  and  ruled  and 
died,  three  thousand  years  ago. 

Nearly  all  the  modern  greatness  of  Egypt  is  due  to  her  pres- 
ent ruler.  Mohammed  Ali,  was  a  man  of  great  ability,  and  un- 
der his  rule  the  country  received  an  impetus  in  the  right  direc- 
tion. He  founded  schools,  dug  canals,  and  did  many  things  for 
the  prosperity  of  the  country,  and  when  he  had  determined  to 
act  in  a  certain  direction,  he  didn't  allow  himself  to  be  thwarted. 
At  one  time  he  had  decided  to  widen  the  Mooskee,  now  the  prin- 
cipal street  of  the  old  part  of  Cairo,  and  was  about  to  begin  work 
when  the  Moslem  priests  interfered  and  declared  they  would 
bring  anathemas  upon  him  if  the  design  was  not  relinquished. 

He  ordered  the  contumacious  fellows  arrested,  and  threatened 
to  decapitate  them  unless  they  behaved  themselves.  They  were 
in  no  hurry  to  be  ushered  into  the  presence  of  Mohammed  the 
Prophet,  and  so  they  yielded  to  Mohammed  the  Ruler. 

This  recalls  the  story  of  Peter  the  Great,  when  he  founded  St. 
Petersburg  and  compelled  the  priests  to  bring  the  bones  of  one 
of  the  saints  from  their  resting  place  at  Vladimir.  The  priests 
did  not  like  the  new  location,  and  one  day  they  took  the  bones 
and  started  off  for  Vladimir,  declaring  that  the  ghost  of  the  de- 
parted had  told  them  to  do  so.  Peter  sent  after  them,  with  the 
threat  of  making  ghosts  of  all  of  them,  unless  they  returned,  and 
they  did  return,  bones  and  all.  There  is  nothing  like  having  a 
will  of  your  own,  and  the  power  to  use  it. 

The  Khedive  is  like  his  grandfather  in  many  things,  and  is  not 
easily  thwarted  when  he  has  made  up  his  mind  to  anything.  He 
is  a  liberal  ruler,  and  believes  in  the  enterprise  and  progress  of 


502  MARRIED    ON    SHORT    NOTICE. 

the  Occident,  rather  than  in  the  slow  coach  system  of  the  Ori- 
ent. Though  a  Mohammedan  he  is  no  bigot,  as  is  shown  by  the 
perfect  freedom  accorded  to  all  religions,  and  by  his  personal  gift 
of  land  to  any  Christian  society  that  wishes  to  build  a  church. 

He  has  a  difficult  position  to  occupy,  as  he  is  a  Mohammedan 
and  ruler  of  Mohammedans  ;  when  he  comes  in  contact  with 
any  of  the  prerogatives  of  the  religion,  he  is  obliged  to  devise  a 
course  that  shall  keep  the  religion  inviolate.  For  example  he 
wishes  to  abolish  slavery  and  to  destroy  the  slave  trade,  but  here 
he  comes  in  contact  with  the  Koran,  which  permits  the  owner- 
ship of  human  property. 

He  sends  an  army  into  the  regions  of  the  Upper  Nile,  and  de- 
stroys the  business  of  kidnapping  and  the  importation  of  slaves; 
he  cannot  liberate  the  slaves  now  held  in  Egypt,  but  he  orders 
that  when  a  slave  runs  away  the  machinery  of  the  law  shall  not 
be  used  for  his  recapture.  Any  slave  in  Cairo  may  run  away, 
and  be  safe  from  arrest ;  owners  and  slaves  are  aware  of  this 
state  of  things,  and  consequently  the  owners  treat  their  slaves  so 
well  that  they  are  not  inclined  to  run  away.  I  was  told  that 
slaves  were  generally  better  treated  than  free  laborers*  This 
state  of  affairs  was  not  unknown  in  some  parts  of  our  own  border 
states  previous  to  our  civil  war. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  power  of  the  Khedive  over  his  sub- 
jects, I  will  mention  an  incident  which  was  narrated  to  me. 

When  the  Empress  Eugenie  was  in  Egypt  she  expressed  a  de- 
sire to  witness  an  Egyptian  wedding.  The  Khedive  summoned 
an  officer  of  his  staff,  and  told  him  to  be  ready  to  be  married  the 
next  day. 

One  of  the  ladies  attached  to  the  harem  was  designated  as  the 
bride,  and  the  wedding  came  off  in  grand  style,  to  the  delight  of 
the  Empress  and  of  all  concerned.  His  Highness  paid  the  bills 
and  set  up  the  couple  in  good  style,  including  the  present  of  a 
house,  where  the  Empress  paid  them  a  congratulatory  visit 

An  Arab  school  is  a  curiosity.  The  pupils  study  their  lessons 
aloud,  and  make  the  place  about  as  noisy  as  a  political  meeting, 
and  how  they  can  learn  anything  is  a  surprise  to  a  person  from 
the  Occident,  where  silence  is  considered  desirable  in  a  school- 
room.    I  looked  repeatedly    into  these  schools,  and  generally 


AN    ARAB    SCHOOL    ROOM.  5O5 

knew  where  they  were,  at  least  half  a  minute  before  I  reached 
their  doors.  The  master  squats  on  the  floor  at  one  side  of  the 
room,  or  stands  among  some  of  his  pupils  who  are  seated  in  rows  or 
promiscuously  through  the  rest  of  the  apartment.  Their  lessons 
are  given  to  them  upon  slates  or  large  cards,  and  they  sit  rock- 
ing back  and  forth  and  studying  aloud. 

When  they  have  committed  a  lesson,  they  go  to  the  teacher 
and  recite  it,  and  if  found  perfect  they  receive  another.  The  in- 
struction consists  of  reading  and  writing,  the  latter  generally  in- 
cluding passages  from  the  Koran. 

Down  to  the  time  of  Mohammed  Ali,  the  schools  of  Egypt 
were  not  based  upon  any  system  ;  anybody  who  wished  to 
to  open  a  school  could  do  so,  and  children  were  sent  there  and 
received  on  payment  of  a  small  fee.  Under  that  ruler  a  public 
school  system  was  established  ;  it  declined  somewhat  under  his 
immediate  successor,  but  has  been  revived  and  improved,  to 
some  extent,  by  the  Khedive. 

The  schools  are  divided  into  civil  and  military,  and  the  civil 
schools  are  subdivided  into  primary,  secondary,  and  special. 

In  the  primary  schools,  the  pupils  receive  instruction  in  read- 
ing, writing,  and  arithmetic,  and  in  most  of  them  some  foreign 
language,  generally  French,  is  taught.  When  a  certain  profi- 
ciency is  reached,  the  pupils  enter  the  secondary  schools,  where 
they  are  instructed  in  Arabic,  and  may  also  study  Turkish, 
French,  and  English.  The  Arabic  course  includes  history,  pure 
mathematics,  geography,  and  drawing,  and  sometimes  algebra 
and  belles-lettres. 

From  these  schools  a  pupil  may  be  passed  by  examination  into 
one  of  the  special  schools,  which  are  five  in  number,  as  follows : 

Land  Surveying  and  Commercial  School ;  Law  School  ;  Poly- 
technic School;  Arts  et  Metiers  School  ;  and  the  Medical 
School. 

The  time  required  for  study  and  graduation  in  these  schools 

varies  from  two  to  four  years  each.     The   Medical  School  has  a 

school  of  midwifery  for  women,  and  is  the  only  institution  for 

feminine  education  in  Egypt.     The  military  schools  include  every 

branch  of  military  education  ;  they  are  on  the  European  model, 

and  many  of  the  professors  are  Europeans. 
29 


506  A    COLLEGE    WITH    NINE    THOUSAND    STUDENTS. 

Every  Christian  community  in  Cairo  has  its  own  schools,  and 
some  of  them  are  quite  large.  There  is  an  American  mission 
school,  and  also  an  English  one,  and  there  are  French,  Greek, 
Armenian,  and  Coptic  schools,  so  that  the  Christians  are  not  likely 
to  grow  up  in  ignorance.  Many  of  the  mosques  have  free  schools, 
and  medresse,  or  colleges,  attached  to  them. 

The  El  Ashar  mosque  is  the  great  college  of  Cairo,  and  also 
the  principal  university  of  the  East.  There  are  small  porticoes, 
divided  into  apartments,  for  the  use  of  natives  from  different 
parts  of  Egypt  and  the  Orient,  each  province  or  country  having 
a  room  to  itself.  The  professors  receive  no  salaries,  but  live 
upon  presents  from  the  pupils,  and  by  copying  books  or  perform- 
ing other  literary  work.  There  are  nine  thousand  students,  and 
more  than  three  hundred  professors  attached  to  this  university ! 
Nearly  all  the  sciences  taught  in  all  the  colleges  of  the  globe 
have  a  place  here. 

Arabic  is  not  an  easy  language  to  acquire  to  perfection,  but  I 
am  told  that  one  can  learn  to  talk  it  fairly  in  about  twice  the  time 
that  it  would  take  for  learning  a  European  language.  In  the 
short  time  that  I  was  in  Cairo  I  picked  up  a  smattering,  as  I 
make  it  a  rule  to  do  in  all  countries  where  I  expect  to  stay  more 
than  a  month. 

You  will  be  astonished  to  find  how  far  you  can  get  along  with 
a  few  words,  if  you  only  set  about  it  in  earnest.  My  Arabic 
was  much  like  the  English  of  some  of  the  donkey  drivers  ;  there 
were  no  prepositions  and  conjunctions  in  it,  and  the  construction 
of  the  verbs  placed  all  the  rules  of  grammar  at  defiance. 

In  fact,  you  can  get  along  without  many  verbs  when  you  are 
put  to  it.  All  you  want  is  the  name  of  the  thing  you  are  after, 
and  the  words  for  "  how  much."  Then  you  must  have  the 
numerals,  and  thus  armed  and  equipped,  you  may  set  out  on  a 
shopping  excursion  with  a  brave  heart,  and  a  consciousness  that 
every  shop-keeper  you  deal  with  will  cheat  you  if  possible. 

The  Arabs  begin  to  read  a  book  where  we  would  finish  it,  and 
they  generally  read  from  right  to  left,  though  not  always.  When 
they  write  they  hold  the  paper  in  the  left  hand,  and  grasp  a  small 
stick  in  the  right.  This  stick  is  sharpened  to  a  point,  like  a 
pencil,  and  dipped  in  the  ink,  and  with  it  the  letters  are  formed 
with  considerable  rapidity. 


AN    ARAB    LETTER-WRITER.  507 

As  in  some  of  the  cities  of  Europe,  there  are  men  whose  pro- 
fession it  is  to  write  letters  for  those  unable  to  write,  and  you  see 
these  men  squatted  on  the  sidewalk,  with  paper,  pen,  ink  and  sand 
before  them,  ready  for  a  customer.  They  have  a  peculiar  kind  of 
ink-stand  in  Cairo  ;  it  is  made  of  brass,  and  has  a  long  handle 
running  back  nearly  a  foot.  This  handle  is  hollow,  and  holds  the 
pens,  and  it  serves  the  purpose  of  sustaining  the  ink-stand  in  the 
girdle.  The  ink  is  generally  a  little  thicker  than  ours,  but  they 
can  write  with  European  ink  without  trouble.  You  see  these 
ink-stands  very  often  in  the  girdles  of  merchants  and  accountants 
in  the  bazaars,  and  it  is  not  unusual  to  see  a  man  standing  or 
squatting  on  the  sidewalk,  and  engaged  in  the  production  of  a 
letter.  And  the  oddest  thing  of  the  whole  business  is  to  see  him 
holding  the  paper  in  his  hand  ;  if  you  ask  an  Arab  to  sit  at  your 
desk  to  write  a  letter,  the  chances  are  fifty  to  one  that  he  will 
pick  up  the  paper  instead  of  placing  it  on  the  flat  surface,  as  is 
our  invariable  custom.  In  the  government  offices  they  have 
learned  to  write  with  the  paper  flat  on  the  desk,  but  they  do  not 
take  to  it  kindly. 

I  have  seen  a  high  official  sit  at  his  desk  and  pick  up  a  docu- 
ment in  order  to  affix  his  signature,  and  he  continued  to  hold  the 
paper  until  he  had  signed  it  and  appended  his  seal.  The  seal  is 
a  very  necessary  part  of  the  business  ;  it  is  not  put  on  with  wax, 
but  is  stamped  with  ink. 

Every  year  a  caravan  leaves  Cairo  for  Mecca,  and  is  accom- 
panied by  pilgrims  to  the  birth-place  of  Mohammed.  The  march 
is  through  the  desert,  and  consumes  from  sixty  to  eighty  days, 
sometimes  exceeding  the  latter  number.  The  annual  pilgrimage 
from  all  parts  of  the  Mohammedan  world  is  about  seventy  thou- 
sand ;  the  number  going  by  land  is  steadily  decreasing,  for  the 
reason  that  one  can  now  go  by  steamer  to  Djeddah,  on  the  Red 
Sea,  and  from  thence  two  or  three  days  on  foot  will  bring  him  to 
the  Holy  City  Steamers  run  regularly  from  Suez  to  Djeddah, 
and  in  the  season  of  pilgrimage  there  are  extra  boats  that  carry 
deck  passengers  at  a  very  low  fare. 

The  departure  of  the  annual  caravan  from  Cairo  is  a  scene  of 
great  pomp.  A  camel  is  designated  to  carry  the  Mahmal,  or 
sacred  canopy  ;  it  was  originally  designed  to  contain  such  of  the 


508  DEPARTURE  OF  A  CARAVAN. 

wives  of  the  Caliphs  as  wished  to  make  the  journey,  but  latterly 
it  contains  nothing,  and  has  become  simply  a  rich  decoration, 
which  ultimately  finds  a  place  in  one  of  the  mosques.  Another 
camel  carries  the  Kisweh  en  nebbe,  a  quantity  of  rich  silk,  covered 
with  sentences  from  the  Koran,  embroidered  in  letters  of  gold. 
It  is  annually  supplied  from  Cairo  for  lining  the  temple  at  Mecca  ; 
the  old  one  is  returned  and  cut  into  small  bits  for  distribution 
among  those  of  the  faithful  who  are  unable  to  make  the  pil- 
grimage. 

The  caravan  starts  from  the  Citadel,  and  there  is  generally  a 
large  crowd  in  attendance,  to  see  it  off.  It  has  always  been  the 
custom  for  the  reigning  Viceroy  or.  Caliph  to  witness  the  de- 
parture of  the  caravan,  but  for  two  years  the  Khedive  has  not 
been  present  in  person.  He  has  sent  a  deputy,  in  the  shape  of 
his  son  ;  the  Viceroy  or  his  deputy  presents  a  purse  of  gold  to 
the  rider  of  the  camel  to  pay  the  expenses  of  the  journey,  and, 
formerly,  this  purse  was  noted  for  its  size  and  weight.  It  has 
grown  small  by  degrees,  and  beautifully  less,  and  the  probability 
is  that  before  many  years,  the  presentation  will  cease  altogether. 
The  Khedive  shows  a  most  emphatic  desire  to  put  an  end  to  the 
useless  and  expensive  mummeries  that  have  been  handed  down 
to  him  from  the  early  days  of  Mohammedanism. 

The  return  of  the  pilgrims  is  quite  an  event  in  Cairo,  but  not 
so  great  as  the  departure,  for  the  reason  that  the  caravan  strag- 
gles a  great  deal,  and  the  individual  members  are  inclined  to 
hurry  to  their  homes  with  as  little  delay  as  possible.  Formerly 
there  was  a  suspension  of  labor  and  a  grand  festival,  but  at  pres- 
ent there  is  little  more  than  a  procession  of  the  returning  pil- 
grims. 

There  is  a  much  more  disagreeable  occurrence  on  the  birth- 
day of  Mohammed,  when  the  ceremony  of  the  doseh  is  per- 
formed. 

The  word  in  Arabic  means  '"treading,"  and  is  descriptive 
enough  as  far  as  it  goes.  The  return  of  the  pilgrims  from  Mecca 
is  arranged  so  that  it  falls  near  the  anniversary  of  \.h.e.Moolid  eji- 
Nebbe,  or  birth-day  of  the  Prophet.  There  are  many  festivities 
on  this  day  which  correspond  to  our  Christmas  ;  services  are  held 
in  all  the  mosques,  and  those  who  can  afford  a  good  dinner  and 


A    MEAL    OF    SNAKES.  509 

suit  of  clothes  are  sure  to  have  them.  There  are  ceremonies  not 
only  in  the  mosques,  but  on  the  streets.  Dervishes  go  about 
with  pins  sticking  through  their  flesh,  or  bearing  heavy  burdens, 
and  show  no  signs  of  pain  or  fatigue. 

Formerly  there  were  dervishes  who  went  about  with  coils  of 
live  serpents  around  them,  and  occasionally  they  amused  the 
crowd  by  eating  one  of  the  snakes.  This  pleasant  practice  has 
been  discontinued,  partly  for  the  reason  that  many  over-sensitive 
people  objected  to  it,  and  partly  because  the  dervish  stomach 
could  not  easily  digest  this  irregular  food.  A  man  may  eat  a  live 
snake,  but  I  doubt  if  he  is  likely  to  "hanker  after  it"  any  more 
than  the  countryman  in  the  "crow"  story. 

The  public  squares  are  filled  with  booths,  swings,  and  other 
means  of  amusement,  and  there  is  always  a  dense  crowd  around 
them.  Reciters  of  romance  are  numerous,  and  any  person  fa- 
miliar with  the  language  of  the  country  may  hear  the  tales  of  the 
Arabian  Nights,  or  similar  works  of  fiction,  chanted  in  slow, 
measured  accents,  by  men  who  have  carefully  committed  them  to 
memory.  Formerly  there  were  many  GJiawazee,  or  dancing 
girls ;  their  employments  were  not  entirely  confined  to  dancing, 
and  their  appearance  in  public  has  been  forbidden  by  the  au- 
thorities. There  are  frequent  processions  of  dervishes,  and  at 
night  the  streets  are  hung  with  lanterns  and  otherwise  made 
more  gay  than  usual. 

The  ceremony  of  the  DoscJi  takes  place  just  after  the  noon  pray- 
ers, and  a  great  crowd  is  always  gathered  to  witness  it.  The  Sheik 
of  the  Saadeeyah  dervishes  passes  the  night  and  forepart  of  the 
day  at  the  Mosque  of  Hassaneyn  and  devotes  the  time  to  the 
repetition  of  prayers  and  invocations  which  shall  fit  him  for  the 
ceremony.  When  all  is  ready  he  mounts  a  horse  and  sets  out, 
accompanied  by  a  numerous  delegation  of  Moslems  from  various 
parts  of  the  city.  His  horse  is  led  by  two  men,  and  he  proceeds 
at  a  walking  pace. 

At  the  spot  selected  for  the  performance  some  two  or  three 
hundred  persons  lie  down  in  the  street,  closely  wedged  together 
so  that  they  make  a  very  fine  imitation  of  a  corduroy  road.  Their 
heads  are  all  one  way  and  resting  upon  their  folded  arms,  and  the 
crowd  ranges  close  against  them  in  a  very  compact  hedge.     Their 


5IO 


CEREMONY    OF    THE     DOSEH. 


backs  are  upward,  and  they  mutter  "Allah  !"  "Allah  !"  without 
intermission  while  waiting  the  conclusion  of  the  ceremony. 

When  the  Sheik  approaches  this  novel  causeway  his  horse  be- 
comes restive,  and  refuses  to  go  on,  but  he  is  pulled  by  the  two 
men  who  hold  the  bridle  and  urged  by  those  behind  so  that  he 
does  not  hesitate  a  great  while.  But  evidently  he  does  not  like 
his  employment. 

He  ambles  rather  hastily  over  the  human  pavement,  and 
toward  the  end  he  gives  a  jump  that  would  break  into  a  gallop 


CEREMONY   OF   THE    DOSEH. 


were  he  not  restrained  by  the  man  at  his  bridle.  The  fellows 
forming  the  pavement  rise  up  the  instant  the  horse  passes  over 
them,  and  join  the  crowd  which  presses  from  behind,  with  an  ir- 
regular shout  of  "  Allah  !  Allah !"  and  this  is  the  ceremony  of 
the  do  sell. 

The  Moslems  insist  that  no  harm  comes  to  any  one  from  the 
tread  of  the  horse,  as  the  dervishes  are  protected  by  the  direct 
interposition  of  Providence.  Each  person  receives  at  least  two 
treads  from  the  horse's  feet,  and  in  addition  he  has  the  gentle 
footsteps  of   the   two    men   leading  the   horse.     One  of   these 


MOSLEM  STOICISM.  5II 

worthies  walks  on  the  heads  and  the  other  on  the  feet  of  the 
prostrate  forms,  and  they  endeavor  to  give  everybody  a  show. 
They  take  short  steps  so  that  nobody  shall  be  missed,  and  be- 
tween them  and  the  horse,  the  corduroy  performers  ought  to  be 
satisfied.  Whether  from  motives  of  delicacy  or  out  of  regard  for 
the  animate  soil  on  which  they  tread,  these  grooms  walk  bare- 
footed, and  carry  their  shoes  in  their  hand.  It  is  also  worthy  of 
remark  that  the  horse  ridden  by  the  Sheik  is  of  medium  size,  and 
wears  no  shoes,  and  the  Sheik  is  always  a  small  man.  In  having 
a  miracle  wrought  before  the  eyes  of  the  people,  the  Moslem 
priests  are  careful  to  make  the  conditions  as  easy  as  possible. 
They  might  select  a  horse  of  the  largest  size,  have  him  freshly 
and  sharply  shod  and  ridden  by  a  Sheik  whose  weight  would  en- 
title him  to  the  Presidency  of  the  Fat  Men's  Association.  But 
they  know  what  they  are  about,  and  do  nothing  of  the  sort. 

I  have  talked  with  Moslems  and  other  residents  of  Cairo  about 
the  doseJi.  The  former  insist  that  the  prostrate  men  are  saved 
by  a  miracle,  while  the  latter  believe  that  more  or  less  harm 
comes  every  year  to  the  performers,  and  is  concealed  by  the  rush 
of  the  crowd  from  behind.  Any  cry  of  pain  that  may  be  uttered 
is  completely  drowned  by  the  shouts  of  the  crowd  ;  the  horse 
steps  on  that  portion  of  the  body  which  is  very  useful  in  occupy- 
ing a  chair,  and  can  sometimes  be  kicked  with  impunity,  and  it 
is  possible  that  his  feet  have  no  lasting  impression. 

At  any  rate  not  a  shriek  is  heard,  and  no  one  is  ever  known 
by  the  public  to  have  been  injured.  The  dead  and  wounded,  if 
any,  are  dragged  away  and  kept  out  of  sight,  and  so  great  is  East- 
ern stoicism,  that  not  one  of  those  trampled  on  will  venture  to 
give  utterance  to  his  pain,  as  by  so  doing  he  would  lose  the  pro- 
tection of  Allah ;  and  be  denied  admission  within  the  gates  of 
Paradise ! 

When  the  Nile  has  reached  a  certain  height  during  the  period 
of  the  inundation,  there  is  a  ceremony  of  cutting  the  embank- 
ment and  allowing  the  water  to  spread  over  the  land.  This  was 
formerly  an  affair  of  great  consequence  ;  its  origin  is  unknown, 
as  the  custom  existed  in  the  time  of  the  Pharaohs,  and  among 
the  earlier  dynasties.  The  place  selected  is  at  the  opening  of 
the  canal,  a  short  distance  from  old  Cairo,  and  formerly  nearly 
half  the  population  turned  out  to  see  the  performance. 


512  THE    BRIDE    OF    THE    NILE. 

At  the  appointed  hour  the  Governor  of  Cairo,  or  a  deputy  of 
the  Pasha,  makes  his  appearance,  accompanied  by  a  gorgeous  re- 
tinue of  officers,  and  preceded  by  a  band  of  music.  When  all  is 
ready  half  a  dozen  men  rush  forward  and  open  the  embankment 
with  hoes  and  spades,  and  instantly  the  water  rushes  in  and  fills 
the  bed  of  the  canal.  The  governor  then  throws  a  handful  of 
money  into  the  canal,  and  this  is  scrambled  for  by  a  crowd  of 
boys,  who  stand  ready  for  it. 

Tradition  says  that  formerly  a  virgin  was  thrown  into  the 
water  and  sacrificed  to  the  river  god,  but  the  custom  no  longer 
prevails,  at  least,  in  its  original  form.  A  pillar  of  earth  is  built 
up  just  below  the  opening,  and  dressed  in  white,  and  this  is  sup- 
posed to  represent  the  Bride  of  the  Nile.  Sometimes  a  doll  is 
thrown  into  the  water,  as  a  substitute  for  the  living  girl  formerly 
sacrificed  ;  whether  the  River  God  is  satisfied  with  this  offer- 
ing, I  am  unable  to  say,  but  as  the  fertility  of  the  Nile  Valley  is 
the  same  from  year  to  year,  it  is  fair  to  presume  that  the  sacri- 
fice by  proxy  does  not  displease  him. 

There  are  several  other  ceremonies  at  Cairo,  but  they  are 
steadily  declining  in  importance  as  year  after  year  rolls  on.  The 
government  is  becoming  more  and  more  practical,  with  each  suc- 
ceeding change  of  seasons,  and  as  the  government  goes  the  people 
follow.  Cairo  was  once  a  stronghold  of  Islam  ;  to-day  it  has 
ceased  to  be  a  reliance  of  the  Moslem  power,  and  probably  the 
end  of  the  century  will  see  it  far  more  Christian  than  Mohamme- 
dan in  character.  It  has  ceased  to  be  a  center  of  fanaticism,  and 
a  Christian  may  now  walk  through  all  its  streets  without  fear  of  in- 
sult on  account  of  his  religion. 


CHAPTER     XL  I 


THE  GREAT  PYRAMIDS.— IN  THE  KINGS'  BURIAL  CHAMBERS. 

A  Visit  to  the  Great  Pyramids — A  Fellah  not  a  Fellow — Sakkiehs  and  Shadoofs — A 
File  of  Camels  and  Donkeys — A  striking  Spectacle — A  horde  of  Arabs — Trouble- 
some Customers — The  Great  Pyramid — How  we  climbed  it — A  Giant  Stairway — 
Dimensions  Extraordinary— The  lost  Arts— Standing  on  the  Summit — The  Judge's 
Predicament — Arab  Cormorants— What  we  saw  from  the  top  of  the  Great  Pyra- 
mid— Wonderful  Contrasts— Performance  of  an  Arabian  Acrobat — A  race  down  the 
Pyramid  Stairs— A  perilous  Descent— Penetrating  the  Interior— The  King's  Cham- 
ber—A dusty  Receptacle  of  Coffins — The  Sphinx — A  mysterious  Statue. 

EVERY  visitor  to  Cairo  makes  at  least  one  journey  to  the  fa- 
mous pyramids  of  Gizeh,  and  generally  takes  an  early  op- 
portunity to  make  it.  Until  within  a  few  years  there  was  consid- 
erable labor  and  fatigue  to  the  excursion  as  it  was  necessary  to 
ride  there  on  donkeys,  and  the  whole  trip  required  not  less  than 
five  hours  of  saddle  exercise.  There  was  also  the  necessity  of 
crossing  the  Nile  on  a  ferry  boat,  and  as  there  was  generally  a 
crowd  of  men,  boys,  camels,  and  donkeys  at  the  ferry,  the  jour- 
ney across  had  a  reasonable  amount  of  excitement  in  it.  Now 
you  ride  to  the  Pyramids  in  a  carriage  and  along  a  macadamized 
road,  and  you  cross  the  Nile  over  an  iron  bridge  that  is  a  great 
improvement  upon  the  ferry. 

At  my  first  visit  we  made  up  a  party  of  twelve  and  therefore 
took  three  carriages  for  which  we  paid  twenty  francs  each  car- 
riage, quite  a  reasonable  price  compared  with  hack  fares  in 
America. 

We  started  about  nine  o'clock,  after  crossing  the  river  found 

(513) 


5  14  SAKKIEHS    AND    SHADOOFS. 

ourselves  among  the  fertile  fields  that  produce  many  of  the  veg- 
etables consumed  in  Cairo.  Fellahs  were  at  work  in  these  fields, 
som.e  of  them  very  scantily  clad,  particularly  those  who  manipu- 
lated the  sakkichs  or  water  lifters.  A  sakkieh  is  a  very  primi- 
tive machine  and  consists  of  a  pole  and  bucket  supported  like  the 
old  fashioned  well-sweep  of  America.  The  term  sakkieh  is  ap- 
plied to  all  the  apparatus  for  raising  water,  but  the  proper  name 
for  the  Egyptian  pole  and  bucket  is  shadoof.  The  shadoof  is 
very  ancient,  as  it  is  represented  on  the  walls  of  the  tombs  con- 
structed three  or  four  thousand  years  ago. 

We  met  troops  of  camels  and  donkeys  laden  with  green* pro- 
visions for  Cairo  ;  the  majority  of  them  carried  freshly  cut  grass 
for  the  sustenance  of  donkeys,  horses,  and  camels,  piled  in  great 
loads  that  half  concealed  the  animals  that  bore  them.  The  grass 
thus  cut  is  sold  quite  cheaply,  and  as  many  as  four  or  five  crops 
can  be  taken  from  the  land  in  the  course  of  the  year.  The  fer- 
tility of  the  Nile  soil  exceeds  that  of  any  land  I  have  ever  seen 
elsewhere  ;  the  lower  Mississippi  with  all  its  richness  is  far  be- 
hind it. 

Althougn  good  roads  have  been  provided  here  burdens  are  still 
carried  almost  entirely  on  the  backs  of  animals,  very  few  carts 
being  in  use.  Almost  the  only  vehicles  visible  here  are  the  car- 
riages of  tourists  going  to  or  from  the  Pyramids  or  visiting  one 
of  the  Khedive's  palaces.  There  is  a  fine  palace  on  this  side  of 
the  Nile  known  as  the  Gezereh,  and  there  are  two  new  palaces 
in  course  of  construction.  In  spite  of  the  tightened  money  mar- 
ket and  the  general  absence  of  cash,  the  Khedive  continues  to 
make  extensive  outlays  on  palaces  and  their  adornments.  He 
has  several  sons,  and  it  is  desirable  that  each  shall  have  a  home 
of  his  own. 

As  we  drive  towards  them  the  Pyramids  fill  the  horizon,  or 
rather  they  rise  very  prominently  out  of  it.  When  we  are  yet 
an  hour's  drive  from  their  base  they  seem  not  more  than  ten 
minutes  away,  an  optical  delusion,  partly  attributable  to  the  clear 
atmosphere  and  partly  to  the  great  size  of  the  structures  them- 
selves. A  house  two  stories  in  height  stands  at  the  foot  of  the 
first  pyramid,  and  by  observing  what  a  slight  speck  it  makes 
against  the  great  mass  you  can  form  an  idea  of  what  is  before 


ij.iiii'i 


NEARING    THE    PYRAMIDS.  517 

you.  Long  before  we  are  near  the  Pyramids  our  carriage  is  sur- 
rounded by  Arabs,  bent  on  serving  us  in  some  way,  or  at  all 
events  in  wringing  money  from  us.  They  follow  the  carriage 
at  a  run  and  have  no  difficulty  in  keeping  up  with  us.  Most  of 
them  run  bare-footed  and  keep  their  great  clumsy  shoes  in  their 
hands  as  the  least  fatiguing  way  of  carrying  the  burdens. 

At  the  edge  of  the  fertile  land  the  road  ascends  an  elevation 
and  here  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  dismount  and  walk  as  the  track 
is  covered  with  sand  that  has  blown  from  the  desert  and  makes 
the  ascent  very  difificult  for  a  loaded  vehicle.  The  horses  have 
all  they  can  do  to  take  the  empty  carriage  up  the  slope  and  the 
drivers  are  obliged  to  use  the  whip  very  freely. 

We  came  to  a  halt  on  the  broad  open  space  below  the  Great 
Pyramid,  and  the  drivers  immediately  removed  and  unharnessed 
their  horses,  and  took  out  the  poles  of  the  carriages.  The  Arabs 
flocked  around  us  to  make  bargains  for  the  ascent ;  there  are 
some  thirty-five  or  forty  that  stay  here  to  serve  travellers,  and 
they  have  a  fixed  tariff  for  the  ascent  and  the  journey  into  the 
interior  You  pay  two  shillings  to  the  sheik  of  the  tribe  for  the 
ascent  and  two  more  if  you  go  inside,  and  for  this  he  furnishes 
you  with  two  or  more  men  to  assist  you.  Half  a  dozen  will  vol- 
unteer to  accompany  you  but  two  are  quite  enough. 

A  friend  had  told  me  what  to  do  so  I  stipulated  that  only  the 
two  men  to  serve  me  should  come  near  me  otherwise  I  should 
pay  nothing.  I  required  the  sheik  to  select  the  two  and  away 
we  started.  A  boy  carrying  a  gargolet  of  water  followed  us,  and 
I  found  him  desirable  and  consented  that  he  should  accompany 
me.  The  unusual  exertion  gives  one  a  dryness  in  the  throat  that 
it  is  well  to  alleviate  occasionally. 

The  Great  Pyramid  is  built  on  a  rock  platform,  about  a 
hundred  feet  above  the  level  of  the  plain  below  ;  from  a  very 
early  period,  it  was  one  of  the  cemeteries  of  Memphis,  and  at 
the  present  day  the  remains  of  tombs  are  scattered  all  around, 
most  of  them  being  buried  in  the  sand.  The  stones  for  build- 
ing the  pyramid  came  from  the  other  side  of  the  Nile,  and  were 
ferried  over  in  boats  to  the  end  of  a  causeway  that  was  built 
to  facilitate  their  transport  to  the  place  where  they  now  lie. 

As  it  now  stands,  the  pyramid  consists  of  a  series  of  steps 


5i8 


DIMENSIONS    OF    THE    GREAT    PYRAMID. 


from  two  to  four  feet  high,  and  very  few  of  them  are  less  than 
three  feet.  To  make  the  ascent,  you  yield  yourself  into  the 
hands  of  the  two  Arabs  appointed  to  accompany  you  ;  they 
stand  above,  and  lift  you  up  by  the  arms,  at  the  same  time  in- 
dicating where  you  are  to  place  your  feet. 

Imagine  a  series  of  steps  as  high  or  higher  than  an  ordinary 
dining-table  or  writing-desk.      And  then  remember  that   you 

must  ascend  on 
these  steps  a  per- 
pendicular height 
of  four  hundred  and 
eighty  feet. 

Originally,  when 
completed,  the  pyr- 
amid had  a  casing 
of  granite  and  lime- 
stone fitted  into 
these  steps,  so  that 
an  ascent  was  im- 
possible. The  cas- 
ing has  entirely 
disappeared,  hav- 
ing been  removed 
for  building  pur- 
poses in  Cairo  at 
the  time  of  the 
Caliphs  ;  on  the 
second  pyramid, 
part  of  the  casing 
still  remains, 
though  broken  in 
places,  and  gives 
an  idea  of  the  beauty  of  the  whole,  before  the  work  was 
injured. 

And  now  a  few  figures  ;  skip  them  if  you  like,  and  don't  say 
anything  about  them. 

The  great  pyramid  is  seven  hundred  and  forty-six  feet  long, 
and  four  hundred  and  eighty  feet  high.     It  covers  an  area  of  five 


CLIMBING    THE   PYRAMID. 


HOW    WERE    THE    PYRAMIDS    BUILT?  5 19 

hundred  and  thirty-six  thousand  square  feet,  or  nearly  thirteen 
acres.  Its  soUd  contents  are  calculated  at  eighty-five  million 
cubic  feet.     How  much  do  you  suppose  that  is  ? 

Well,  you  could  build  a  wall  four  feet  high  and  two  feet  thick, 
and  something  more  than  two  thousand  miles  long,  with  the  stones 
in  this  pyramid,  or  you  could  build  a  wall  twelve  feet  high  and 
four  feet  thick  all  the  way  from  Cincinnati  to  St.  Louis — a  dis- 
tance of  three  hundred  and  forty  miles.  And  if  you  piled  it  up 
around  Manhattan  Island,  where  New 'York  stands,  you  would 
encircle  that  metropolis  with  a  wall  twenty  feet  thick  and  forty 
feet  high.  And  remember  that  all  this  stone  was  hewn  from  the 
quarries,  and  moved  and  piled  up  before  the  days  of  steam  ! 

How  were  the  pyramids  built  .■'  That  is  a  conundrum  which 
many  people  have  puzzled  over,  and  nobody  has  been  able  to 
answer.  The  Egyptians  have  left  nothing  to  indicate  how  they 
performed  their  work,  and  nobody  has  been  able  to  devise  a  satis- 
factory explanation.  Many  men  have  theorized  about  the  matter, 
and  every  time  anybody  builds  up  a  theory  the  rest  of  them  show 
that  it  was  impossible  to  build  the  pyramids  in  that  way.  One 
of  these  days,  something  may  be  discovered  to  throw  light  upon 
the  matter,  but  at  present  all  is  darkness. 

All  this  time  I  have  had  you  climbing  up  the  northeast  corner 
of  the  great  pyramid,  halting  occasionally  to  take  breath  and  a 
swallow  of  water,  and  a  glance  at  the  country  around  and  below 
us.  It  is  tough  work  for  the  muscles,  to  climb  these  high  steps, 
but  if  you  are  patient  and  careful  you  will  get  along  without  much 
trouble. 

In  about  fifteen  minutes  we  are  at  the  top,  and  the  Arabs  in- 
dulge in  a  hurrah  as  we  get  there.  They  pestered  me  on  the 
way  up  to  give  them  a  personal  fee,  in  addition  to  what  I  gave 
the  sheik,  and  I  promised  it  to  them  on  condition  that  they 
should  not  allude  to  it  again  until  they  reached  the  base.  The 
men  I  had  were  strong,  healthy  fellows,  rather  dignified  in  their 
bearing,  and  they  spoke  English,  French,  and  Italian  sufficiently 
well  to  be  understood.  They  handled  me  without  difficulty,  and 
by  making  them  understand  what  I  wanted  at  the  outset,  and 
being  firm  with  them,  I  had  no  trouble. 

The  Judge  had  so  much  bother  with  the  Arabs,  that  he  was 


520 


AN    INJUDICIOUS   JUDGE. 


rather  disgusted  with  his  visit.  About  a  dozen  of  the  fellows 
accompanied  him,  and  gave  him  all  sorts  of  assistance.  Two 
pulled  him  up,  and  two  pushed  ;  one  unwound  his  turban,  and 
two  others  put  it  around  the  Judge's  waist  in  order  to  lift  him. 
Another  carried  his  overcoat,  another  his  cane,  and  another  a 
bottle  of  water,  and  two  or  three  others  gave  directions  as  to 
the  proper  places  for  his  feet. 

When  he   reached 
the  top,  they  wanted 
some    "backsheesh," 
and  he  was  injudicious 
enough    to    give    it. 
This  opened  the  ball, 
and  they  kept  at  him  ; 
and     he   gave   away, 
there  and  at  the  base 
of  the  pyramid,  some- 
thing over  twenty-five 
francs.     Each  man 
who  pulled  and  each 
who    pushed   wanted 
something  ;    the    fel- 
lows   who    lifted    at 
the     turban     wanted 
something,    and    the 
owner  of   the  turban 
wanted  something  for 
the  use  of  it ;  the  man 
who  carried  his  over- 
coat    wanted     some- 
thing, and  so  did  the 
THE  ASCENT  OK  THE  JUDGE.  cane-bcarcr   and   the 

water-bearer  ;  then  the  other  fellows  wanted  something,  and 
after  they  had  received  something  all  around  separately,  they 
asked  for  a  general  fee  in  addition.  You  could  no  more  satisfy 
these  brigands  with  any  ordinary  lot  of  money,  than  you  could 
bail  out  Lake  Erie  with  a  teaspoon. 

Originally,  the  summit  of  the  great  pyramid  was  a  point  or  very 


ON  THE  SUMMIT  OF  THE  GREAT  PYRAMID.        52 1 

nearly  so;  it  has  been  removed  so  that  it  is  now  about  thirty 
feet  square,  some  of  the  blocks  resting  higher  than  others.  You 
can  sit  around  them  there  very  comfortably,  but  there  isn't  much  to 
see  when  you  are  there — that  is,  nothing  very  different  from  what 
you  can  see  at  the  base.  On  the  west  is  the  desert,  north  is  the 
rich  delta  of  the  Nile,  east  is  Cairo,  beyond  the  river  and  backed 
by  the  Mokattaw  and  other  hills  that  fill  the  horizon,  and  south 
there  is  the  valley  of  the  Nile,  opening  between  the  double  lines 
of  desert  on  either  side.  There  are  no  mountains  to  attract  the 
eye  with  their  varieties  of  color  and  jaggedness  of  outline  ;  there 
are  no  lakes  shining  in  the  sunlight,  and  there  is  no  ghmpse  of 
the  ocean  with  its  ever-beating  waves. 

The  prettiest  artificial  features  of  the  landscape  are  the  walls 
and  domes  and  minarets  of  Cairo,  and  the  most  salient  natural 
features  are  the  sharp  contrast  of  valley  and  desert.  There  is 
no  intermediate  ground  ;  at  one  place  it  is  rich  alluvium,  and 
six  inches  away  lies  the  arid  sand.  The  one  is  a  deep,  rich 
green  ;  the  other  is  a  greyish  white,  dazzling  where  it  reflects 
the  sun,  and  tinted  with  the  faintest  shade  of  purple  where  it 
does  not.  The  one  is  the  perfection  of  fertility,  the  most  fecund 
spot  of  land  on  the  globe  ;  the  other  is  bleak  and  utter  sterility, 
with  not  the  tiniest  blade  of  grass  or  shred  of  lichen  to  relieve 
its  desolation.  Nature  draws  nowhere  a  picture  of  sharper  con- 
trasts. 

Out  from  the  deserts  in  the  southern  horizon  comes  the  Nile, 
freighted  with  the  mud  which  makes  the  wealth  of  Egypt.  It  is 
more  than  that— it  is  Egypt,  and  were  it  not  for  this  river,  the 
land  of  the  Pharaohs,  the  Caliphs,  and  the  Khedive  would  not 
exist.  You  can  trace  the  river  as  it  winds  away  through  the 
Delta  and  separates  into  the  branches  and  canals  which  enable 
it  to  distribute  its  blessings  over  a  wide  area  There  is  no  point 
where  you  can  better  realize  how  much  the  Nile  is  Egypt  than 
when  you  look  from  the  summit  of  the  great  pyramid. 

While  we  were  at  the  summit,  an  Arab  proposed  to  run  from 
where  we  stood  to  the  top  of  the  second  pyramid  in  ten  minutes, 
a  feat  which  at  first  glance  seemed  impossible.  We  finally  agreed 
to  give  him  five  francs  if  he  would  do  it,  and  away  he  started. 
He  jumped  from  block  to  block  with  the  agility  of  a  monkey,  at 


522 


AN    ARAB    FEAT. 


about  the  rate  that  an  able-bodied  boy  descends  an  ordinary  stair- 
case, when  he  is  in  a  hurry  to  get  something  at  the  bottom.  He 
ran  across  the  space  between  the  pyramids  and  up  the  other,  but 
I  observed  that  he  made  the  ascent  with  less  appearance  of  hurry 
than  when  descending  the  first.  He  made  the  journey  in  a  httle 
more  than  ten  minutes,  and  I  have  heard  of  an  Arab  doing  it 
inside  of  eight  minutes. 

This  is  one  of  the  stock  amusements  of  the  trip  to  the  pyramids, 
and  I  have  a  book,  written  thirty  years  ago,  in  which  the  same  feat 
is  mentioned.     We  offered  to  give  the  whole  crowd  of  Arabs  five 

francs  each  if  they  would 


stand  at  the  edge  of  the 
platform  and  then  turn 
a  somersault  downwards 
and  outwards ;  they  were 
inclined  to  consider  the 
matter  at  first,  but  one 
of  them,  after  a  moment's 
thought,  exclaimed,  "It 
would  kill  us  ;  we  no  do 
it." 

We  explained  that  this 
was  exactly  what  we 
wanted.  The  fellow 
laughed,  and  replied,  "  It 
do  you  no  good  ;  plenty 
more  Arabs  left.  They 
come  here  and  take  our 
place,  and  they  not  good 
Arabs  like  us." 


'-^"^MiP^^r^^ 


AN    ARAB    KEAT. 


We  had  nothing  more  to  say. 

In  descending  the  pyramid,  my  two  Arabs  stepped  ahead  and 
took  my  hands  as  I  jumped  from  step  to  step.  I  found  it  much 
easier  than  the  ascent,  as  I  had  my  weight,  which  is  not  that  of 
a  feather,  to  assist  me. 

There  is  a  difference  of  opinion  about  the  descent,  some  affirm- 
ing that  it  is  much  worse  than  going  up,  while  others  are  equally 
vehement  in  saying  that  it  is  much  easier.     It  depends  upon  a 


iiiMiiiiiiiiiliiiliiiiiiajiiiiiii;iiiiiiiiiiilyiilii[jiiiiii!iii|ii|i'iiiiiii!iiiiiiiiiiiiiiilliiliiiiiiiii»iiiiiii[iiiiiiiiiii'liiin 


•  THE    BUILDER    OF    THE    GREAT    PYRAMID.  525 

variety  of  personal  circumstances,  such  as  weight,  age,  condition 
of  muscles  and  lungs,  and  upon  the  manipulations  of  the  Arabs 
that  have  you  in  charge.  The  same  conditions  in  every  respect 
will  not  be  found  in  any  two  persons. 

In  any  event,  unless  much  accustomed  to  climbing,  you  will 
have  a  realizing  sense  of  weariness  for  the  rest  of  the  day,  and 
when  you  attempt  to  rise  next  morning,  and  move  your  stiffened 
limbs,  you  can  easily  imagine  yourself  to  be  your  own  grand- 
father. 

The  great  pyramid  was  built  by  Cheops,  one  of  the  kings  of 
Memphis,  who  ruled  about  twenty-seven  hundred  years  before 
Christ — some  say  nearly  four  thousand  years — and  was  intended 
for  his  monument.  Three  hundred  thousand  men  are  said  to 
have  been  employed  twenty  years  upon  its  construction,  and 
some  authorities  say  it  was  not  completed  till  after  his  death. 
When  his  mummy  was  ready,  it  was  put  inside  the  granite  sar- 
cophagus intended  for  it,  and  the  entrance  was  carefully  walled 
up  and  concealed.  It  remained  thus  closed  for  many  centuries. 
In  the  year  820  of  our  era,  one  of  the  Caliphs  of  Cairo  ordered 
a  search  for  the  opening,  and  it  was  finally  discovered  at  quite 
a  distance  up  from  the  ground  on  one  side.  Nothing  of  con- 
sequence was  found  there,  and  the  Caliph  was  greatly  dis- 
appointed, as  he  had  expected  a  vast  treasure  which  tradition 
said  was  concealed  there. 

It  is  quite  as  wearisome  work  to  go  inside  as  to  climb  to  the 
top,  and  many  persons  think  it  is  worse. 

From  the  opening,  you  descend  about  sixty  feet,  at  an  angle  of 
26°,  through  a  passage  way  three  ft.  five  in.  high,  and  three  ft. 
eleven  in.  wide.  Then,  after  a  slight  detour,  you  have  an  ascent  at 
the  same  angle  for  nearly  three  hundred  feet,  some  parts  of  it  being 
quite  low,  and  others  expanding  into  a  high  gallery.  At  the 
end  of  this  passage  is  the  sepulchral  vault  known  as  the  King's 
Chamber,  and  containing  nothing  but  an  empty  sarcophagus  of 
red  granite.  The  sides  and  roof  of  the  chamber  are  of  polished 
granite  ;  the  room  measures  thirty-four  ft  by  seventeen,  and  the 
height  is  a  little  over  nineteen  feet. 

Below  it,  and  reached  by  a  horizontal  gallery  from  the  main 
entrance,  is  another  apartment  called  the    Queen's    Chamber, 
30 


526  THE    kings'    burial    CHAMBER. 

somewhat  smaller  than  the  upper  one,  and  there  are  three  or 
four  other  insignificant  apartments  whose  use  has  not  been 
clearly  determined. 

The  passage  by  which  we  enter  the  pyramid  continues  three 
hundred  and  twenty  feet  downwards,  at  the  same  angle  as  at  the 
commencement,  and  so  straight  is  it  that  when  you  are  at  the 
lower  end  you  can  see  the  sky  as  if  looking  through  the  tube 
of  a  huge  telescope.  At  the  end  of  it  there  is  a  small  chamber, 
and  in  this  a  well  has  been  dug  thirty-six  feet,  without  finding 
any  signs  of  water.  The  statement  of  Herodotus,  that  this 
chamber  was  filled  by  the  inflow  from  the  Nile,  is  probably  on 
a  par  with  other  statements  of  this  reliable  gentleman. 

Most  travellers  are  satisfied  with  a  very  brief  examination  of 
the  interior  of  the  pyramid,  and  are  glad  to  scramble  out 
without  delay.  The  heat  is  pretty  high,  the  air  is  close,  and 
the  dust  almost  stifling.  Then  there  are  the  smoke  of  the 
candles  and  the  glare  of  the  magnesium  wire,  used  for  light- 
ing up  the  interior  of  the  chambers,  and  the  noise  made  by 
the  Arabs,  which  is  ten  times  worse  than  the  same  amount  of 
din  in  the  open  air. 

Formerly,  they  had  a  trick  of  frightening  timid  persons  into 
the  payment  of  heavy  "  backsheesh,"  to  secure  a  safe  return  to 
the  outside,  and  not  unfrequently  they  attempt  the  same  thing 
now.  Some  persons  have  been  very  roughly  handled  by  them, 
and  on  a  few  occasions  they  have  verified  the  American  proverb 
about  waking  up  the  wrong  passenger. 

Early  this  season,  an  Englishman  and  an  American  went 
together  to  visit  the  pyramid,  and,  while  they  were  inside,  the 
Arabs  began  to  threaten  them.  One  Arab  was  knocked  sense- 
less, and  the  others  were  told  that  they  would  have  the  same 
fate,  if  they  did  not  instantly  and  safely  take  the  strangers 
outside. 

They  obeyed,  and  when  the  outer  air  was  reached  were  told 
that  they  would  not  receive  anything  for  their  services. 

They  became  importunate,  and  two  more  of  them  were  knocked 
down.  A  squad  of  soldiers  from  a  surveying  party  happened  to  be 
near  ;  the  officer  in  charge  of  them  was  appealed  to  successfully, 
and  the  offenders  were  severely  thrashed.  Since  then,  there  has 
been  less  rudeness  to  persons  visiting  the  interior  of  the  pyramid. 


'THE    RIDDLE    OF    THE    SPHINX.  52/ 

About  a  quarter  of  a  mile  southeast  of  the  great  pyramid  is 
the  famous  work  of  antiquity  known  as  the  Sphinx.  It  is  much 
mutilated  about  the  face,  and  is  buried  up  to  the  breast  in  the 
sand.  Its  origin  and  meaning  are  unknown  ;  volumes  have 
been  written  about  it,  and  for  more  than  two  thousand  years 
it  has  been  the  subject  of  much  learned  controversy,  of  which 
I  have  not  space  to  give  even  the  outline.  It  has  the  body  of 
an  animal  in  a  crouching  position,  and  the  head  of  a  man.  The 
body,  a  hundred  and  forty  feet  long,  is  formed  of  the  natural 
rock,  with  pieces  of  masonry  here  and  there  to  fill  up  the 
cavities.  The  head  is  cut  out  of  the  solid  rock,  and  was 
originally  about  thirty  feet  from  the  top  of  the  forehead  to 
the  bottom  of  the  chin,  and  about  fourteen  feet  broad. 

Originally,  it  had  a  cap,  wig,  and  beard  ;  the  cap  is  gone,  but 
the  wig  is  still  there,  and  the  beard,  which  has  fallen,  lies  on  the 
ground  below.  As  it  now  stands,  only  the  head,  shoulders,  and 
back  of  the  Sphinx  are  visible,  the  sand  being  everywhere  drifted 
and  piled  around  the  rest.  There  was,  originally,  a  temple  and 
altar  between  its  paws,  and  there  was  a  flight  of  steps  that  de- 
scended from  a  platform  in  front  of  the  temple  to  the  plain 
below. 

The  nose  and  most  of  the  lips  are  gone,  as  though  the  Sphinx 
has  been  the  party  of  the  second  part,  in  a  prize-fight  for  the 
championship,  but,  with  all  its  disfiguration,  the  statue  retains 
much  of  the  comeliness  and  grandeur  for  which  it  has  long  been 
famous. 

What  must  have  been  its  beauty  before  time  and  man  placed 
their  spoiling  hands  upon  it,  and  before  the  encroaching  desert 
heaped  the  sand  around  it,  burying  the  platform,  the  steps,  and 
the  temples,  and  converting  the  whole  scene  into  one  of  desola- 
tion !  Could  any  pageant  of  modern  times  surpass  the  spectacle 
of  the  processions  of  Memphis,  arranged  after  the  manner  of  the 
most  brilliant  period  of  Egyptian  history,  and  coming  to  offer 
adoration  at  the  temple  guarded  between  the  paws  of  that  figure 
hewn  from  the  living  rock  and  overshadowed  by  that  mysterious 
and  immobile  face  .-*  Shall  we  ever  know  who  was  its  architect, 
and  what  was  the  purport  of  this  remarkable  statue  .''  Who  will 
explain  the  riddle  of  the  Sphinx } 


528  A    MYSTERIOUS    TEMPLE. 

Proceeding  southerly  from  the  Sphinx,  we  reach  a  temple 
which  was  discovered  and  excavated  a  few  years  ago.  It  is 
lined  with  red  granite,  porphyry,  and  alabaster,  and  the  stones 
of  which  it  is  composed  are  very  nicely  joined  together. 

Its  history  is  unknown,  but,  from  certain  inscriptions  and 
statues  found  there,  it  is  supposed  to  owe  its  erection  to 
Cephrenes,  or  Shafra,  the  builder  of  the  second  pyramid. 

The  Arabs  broke  off  pieces  of  the  stone  to  sell  to  us,  but  we 
declined  to  buy.  Part  of  a  statue  lies  buried  in  the  sand  ;  a 
statue  of  Cephrenes  was  discovered  here,  and  is  now  in  the 
museum  at  Cairo.  There  are  many  tombs  and  small  temples 
all  around  the  pyramids,  but  they  have  no  great  interest  after 
one  has  seen  the  great  pyramid  and  the  Sphinx.  All  the  tombs, 
as  far  as  known,  have  been  opened  and  examined,  and  their  con- 
tents, if  of  any  value,  carried  away.  Doubtless  there  are  some 
yet  undiscovered,  but  at  present  there  are  no  explorations  in 
progress. 


■^■£~d 


CHAPTER       XLII. 

A  VOYAGE  UP  THE  NILE.— THE  MYSTERIES  OF  EGYPTIAN 
ART   AND    WORSHIP. 

Up  the  Nile  in  a  Sail-Boat — Starting  for  the  Cataracts — Advantages  of  a  Drago- 
man— A  Tricky  Lot — Frauds  on  Travellers — Our  Party — Rather  Cosmopolitan- 
Getting  Ahead  of  Mr.  Cook — Our  Little  Game,  and  How  it  Worked — A  Bath 
with  Spectators — Decidedly  Cool — Getting  Aground — A  Picturesque  Landscape — 
Last  Glimpse  of  the  Pyramids — Spending  Night  on  Shore — Among  the  Ruins  of 
Memphis— The  Wonders  of  Egyptian  Art — What  Marriete  Bey  Discovered — 
Laying  Bare  a  Mysterious  Sepulchre — Ancient  Egyptian  Worship — Sacred  Bulls 
and  Beetles — A  History  Written  in  Stone — Bricks  Made  by  the  Israelites. 

A  JOURNEY  to  Egypt  without  a  trip  up  the  Nile  is  some- 
thing hke  Hamlet  without  the  melancholy  Dane.  Time 
and  money  are  the  insignificant  requisites  for  the  excursion,  and 
it  is  necessary  to  be  pretty  well  provided  with  both,  in  order  to 
make  the  journey  a  comfortable  one. 

The  proper  way  to  do  the  Nile  trip  is  in  a  sail  boat  or  daha- 
beeah,  as  it  is  called  there  ;  this  is  the  way  that  most  travellers 
have  made  it,  and  the  way  in  which  all  were  obliged  to  make  it 
until  a  few  years  ago,  when  steamers  were  introduced.  For  a 
dahabeeaJi  voyage  you  must  be  prepared  to  take  your  own  time, 
and  not  be  restricted  to  getting  back  to  Cairo  at  a  certain  date, 
unless  you  make  that  date  so  far  distant  as  to  cover  all  contin- 
gencies. You  can  hire  the  boat  by  the  day  or  by  the  course ; 
either  way  is  not  altogether  satisfactory,  as  I  have  heard  that  no 
matter  which  mode  you  select,  you  will  afterwards  advise  intending 
voyagers  to  take  the  other.     If  you  go  by  the  day,  it  is  for  the 

(529) 


530 


ON    THE    NILE. 


interest  of  the  boatman  to  be  on  the  river  as  long  as  possible, 
and  he  will  invent  all  sorts  of  excuses  for  delays.  If  you  go  by 
the  course,  you  are  hurried  along  as  fast  as  he  can  crowd  you, 
and  if  you  wish  to  stop  at  a  place  while  ascending  the  river,  he 
will  make  a  variety  of  objections  to  your  doing  so,  unless  there 
is  an  adverse  wind  or  some  other  cause  to  prevent  the  advance 
of  the  boat.  Most  travellers  charter  the  boat  by  the  course,  and, 
all  things  considered,  this  is  the  best  plan, — with  a  stipulation  for 
a  certain  number  of  days  for  stoppages  at  various  points.     From 


A   NILE  BOAT. 


fourteen  to  twenty  days  delay  are  the  ordinary  stipulation,  and 
the  whole  journey  can  be  made  from  Cairo  to  the  First  Cataract 
and  back  in  about  fifty  days.  Three  weeks  must  be  added  if  the 
trip  is  prolonged  to  the  Second  Cataract  These  periods  are 
approximations,  as  the  trip  has  been  made  to  the  First  Cataract 
and  back  inside  of  forty,  and  in  excess  of  eighty  days,  and  to  the 
Second  inside  of  sixty,  and  beyond  a  hundred. 

A  few  years  ago  the  Egyptian  government  placed  some  steam- 
ers on  the  Nile,  and  arranged  to  run  them  to  the  First  Cataract 


TWO    MEN    WHO    TELL    THE    TRUTH.  53 1 

and  back  at  stated  intervals  during  the  winter  season.  For  a  sail- 
boat journey,  much  preparation  is  required,  as  you  must  hire  a 
boat,  stock  it  with  provisions,  engage  a  dragoman,  and  do  a  variety 
of  things  before  you  start,  and  the  preparations  will  take  from  a 
week  to  a  fortnight,  according  to  circumstances.  Sometimes  a 
dragoman  will  take  you  for  a  stipulated  sum  per  day,  and  supply 
you  with  boat  and  everything,  but  in  this  case  you  can  be  sure 
that  you  will  not  be  well  supplied,  unless  you  pay  a  high  price. 

With  the  steamboat  trip  you  have  no  trouble  at  all ;  you 
have  only  to  buy  your  ticket,  and  go  on  board  at  the  appointed 
time  ;  you  are  fed,  lodged,  furnished  with  guides  and  donkeys, 
told  when  to  admire,  and  how  much  you  can  admire,  and  have  a 
given  number  of  days,  hours,  and  minutes  in  which  to  do  every- 
thing. If  no  accident  happens,  you  will  be  back  in  Cairo  twenty 
days  and  five  hours  from  the  time  of  your  departure,  and  will 
have  been  put  through  the  Nile  trip,  as  though  you  were  a  trunk 
or  a  bale  of  goods.  You  have  a  printed  programme  of  the  places 
to  be  visited,  and  of  the  time  to  be  devoted  to  each,  and  also  of 
the  sights  at  each  of  those  places.  You  are  instructed  not  to 
stray  from  the  party,  but  to  follow  the  dragoman  and  observe  the 
orders  he  gives. 

There  is  in  London  a  man,  named  Cook,  who  has  been  for  a 
quarter  of  a  century  or  more  a  dealer  in  excursion  tickets  for 
England  and  the  Continent.  A  few  years  ago  he  extended  his 
excursion  business  to  the  East,  and  latterly  he  has  extended  it  to 
America,  and  around  the  globe.  He  has  a  rival  named  Gaze, 
and  they  are  very  savage  on  each  other.  Gaze  says  (in  polite 
phraseology)  that  Cook  is  a  liar,  and  Cook  (in  equally  polite 
phraseology)  says  Gaze  is  a  liar. 

I  have  read  both  their  pamphlets,  and  have  come  to  the  con- 
clusion, when  perusing  their  personal  anathemas,  that  they  both 
tell  the  truth. 

Cook  sells  tourist  and  single  tickets  for  almost  everywhere, 
and  Gaze  does  likewise.  To  travel  on  one  of  the  tourist  tickets 
is  beautiful  in  theory,  but  to  me,  at  least,  a  great  nuisance  in 
practice.  I  always  avoid  the  tourist  tickets  when  I  can,  but 
sometimes  you  find  a  line  of  transit  monopolized  by  one  of  these 
enterprising  agents,  and  are  obliged  to  take  his  ticket  or  not  go 


532 


PETTY    FRAUDS. 


at  all.  Cook  has  managed  to  obtain  the  appointment  of  sole  and 
exclusive,  agent  for  the  Nile  steamers,  and  consequently  the 
traveller  who  cannot  spare  the  time  and  money  for  a  dahabeeah 
journey,  must  patronize  Cook. 

To  ascend  by  sail-boat  to  the  First  Cataract,  and  return  to 
Cairo,  will  cost  two  persons  about  fifteen  hundred  dollars,  and 
four  persons  about  two  thousand  dollars.  To  go  to  the  Second 
Cataract  will  cost  about  five  hundred  more  in  each  case  If 
the  party  is  larger,  the  charge  is  somewhat  lower  for  each  person. 
For  these  figures  one  can  get  a  large,  well-fitted  boat,  and  be  en- 
titled to  live  with  every  possible  comfort ;  lower  rates  can  be 
made  for  smaller  boats,  and  less  luxury  ;  the  best  terms  I  heard 
of  when  I  was  in  Egypt,  were  sixty-five  Napoleons  (two  hundred 
and  sixty  dollars  gold)  each  for  a  party  of  five  to  the  First 
Cataract,  and  allowing  them  fourteen  days  for  stoppages  on  the 
return  trip,  I  was  several  times  offered  a  contract  at  seventy  or 
eighty  Napoleons  each,  for  a  party  of  five  or  six  to  the  First 
Cataract,  and  for  a  hundred  Napoleons  each,  to  the  Second.  But 
this  was  late  in  the  season  (early  in  January),  in  fact  too  late  to 
have  a  reasonable  chance  of  reaching  the  Second  Cataract.  To 
go  there,  one  should  start  in  the  latter  part  of  November,  or 
early  in  December,  and  for  the  First  Cataract  one  should  start 
in  December.  Early  in  the  season  the  prices  are  high  ;  later  on 
they  are  more  reasonable,  as  the  dragomen  and  owners  of  boats 
begin  to  be  doubtful  of  securing  an  engagement. 

The  price  by  steamer  is  forty-six  pounds  sterling,  including 
everything  except  saddles  for  donkey-riding  and  one  or  two  insig- 
nificant items,  which  rouse  the  temper  much  more  than  they  deplete 
the  purse.  After  you  have  paid  an  exorbitantly  high  price,  and 
are  told  that  it  includes  everything,  you  are  then  told  that  you 
must  pay  five  shillings  extra  for  a  saddle,  and  eight  shillings  for 
a  chair ;  then  when  you  reach  the  First  Cataract,  you  are  told  it 
will  cost  from  two  to  five  shillings  more  to  see  the  cataract,  al- 
though the  advertisement  specially  says  "  The  ticket  includes  the 
trip  to  the  First  Cataract  and  back."  These  petty  frauds  are  of 
course  inseparable  from  the  tourist  business,  as  I  never  yet  knew 
of  a  person  who  had  bought  a  ticket  to  include  everything  who 
was  not  called  on  to  pay  something  more.     The  nearest  one  can 


COOKS    LITTLE    GAME.  533 

come  to  it,  is  on  an  ocean  steamer,  and  on  some  of  the  river  boats 
in  America,  but  even  there  you  are  liable  to  be  bled  considerably 
in  the  course  of  your  journey.  You  are  someti-mes  very  forcibly 
reminded  of  the  story  of  the  traveller,  who  said  that  the  terms  of 
a  certain  hotel  out  west  were  four  dollars  per  day,  with  meals  and 
lodging  extra. 

We  were  a  party  of  thirty  persons  altogether,  and  included  six 
nationalities, — American,  English,  French,  German,  Danish,  and 
Italian. 

Every  place  on  the  boat  was  occupied,  and  there  might  have 
been  a  dozen  more,  had  there  been  any  place  to  put  them 
in.  The  boats  leave  every  two  weeks  from  the  first  of  December 
to  the  end  of  March,  and  if  at  any  time  there  are  passengers 
enough  to  fill  an  extra  boat,  one  is  sent  off. 

Three  o'clock  was  the  hour  for  starting,  so  we  left  the  hotel  at 
two,  sending  our  luggage  on  a  charette,  and  taking  donkeys,  (for 
ourselves,)  to  the  landing. 

Gustave  and  I  thought  we  would  get  ahead  of  Mr.  Cook  a  little, 
by  taking  our  own  wine  along,  as  the  wines  ori  the  boat  were 
extra,  and  sold  at  a  very  high  price,  and  we  found  that  we  would 
save  about  fifty  per  cent,  by  taking  wine  from  the  shop,  and 
paying  Cook  a  shilling  a  bottle,  the  advertised  price  for  corkage. 
So  we  bought  three  cases  and  put  them  with  our  baggage,  but 
they  were  stopped  on  the  deck  of  the  steamer,  by  the  Chief 
Steward  of  the  line,  who  said  he  would  examine  the  wine,  fix 
a  price  upon  it,  and  then  charge  us  fifty  per  cent,  on  its  value. 
We  had  about  five  minutes  of  very  lively  talk,  which  ended  in 
our  triumph,  as  we  had  taken  care  to  bring  a  copy  of  the  adver- 
vertisement,  with  the  proper  paragraph  ready  marked  for  inspec- 
tion. 

It  turned  out  that  Cook  had  bought  a  large  quantity  of  wine 
from  the  steamboat  company,  at  the  time  he  took  charge  of  the 
business,  and  was  anxious  to  sell  it.  Under  such  circumstances 
it  was  very  natural  that  he  should  object  to  a  passenger  supply- 
ing himself  with  wine  to  drink  on  the  voyage.  It  reminded  me 
of  the  enterprise  of  train  boys  on  American  railways  who  neglect 
to  fill  the  water-coolers  in  the  cars,  in  order  that  they  may  be 
able  to  assuage  the  thirst  of  passengers,  by  selling  them  lemonade 
at  five  or  ten  cents  a  glass. 


534  A    BAD    BEGINNING. 

Of  course  there  were  some  passengers  who  came  late,  so  that 
we  were  not  off  until  half  an  hour  beyond  the  appointed  time. 
We  amused  ourselves,  while  waiting,  by  watching  the  movements 
of  the  people  on  shore.  Troops  of  women  and  girls  came  down 
to  the  river  to  fill  water  jars,  which  they  poised  on  their  heads 
and  then  carried  away.  Occasionally  a  man  came  down  to  fill  a 
pig-skin,  and  I  observed  that  the  men  never  carried  water  in  any- 
thing else  than  a  pig  or  goat-skin,  while  the  women  as  invariably 
carried  it  in  jars.  In  several  places,  men  and  women,  some  of  them 
very  scantily  dressed,  were  washing  clothes  in  the  river,  and 
some  of  the  water  for  drinking  purposes  was  scooped  up  unpleas- 
antly near  the  scene  of  their  operations.  One  man  came  to  the 
bank  about  twenty  feet  from  the  stern  of  our  boat,  removed  his 
garments,  and  took  a  bath  with  as  much  sang  froid  as  if  he  were 
the  only  person  present. 

The  human  form  divine,  without  superfluous  adornment  or  en- 
cumbrance, is  a  frequent  object  in  an   Egyptian  landscape.     A 
student  of  living  figures,  a  la  nature,  would  here  find  a  good  field ' 
for  his  observations. 

We  had  not  been  ten  minutes  under  way  before  there  was  an 
alarm  of  fire,  and  the  boat  was  stopped.  It  was  nothing  very 
serious,  only  the  awning  over  the  upper  deck  had  taken  fire  from 
a  spark  from  the  chimney,  and  a  hole  about  six  inches  across  was 
burned  in  the  canvas.  A  little  while  afterward  we  went  aground, 
but  we  did  not  stick  there  long  ;  half  an  hour  later  there  was 
something  wrong  about  the  engine,  and  we  had  to  run  to  the 
shore.  None  of  these  things  wasted  much  time,  but  they  didn't 
promise  well  for  the  future.  Luckily,  however,  they  were  the 
only  events  of  the  kind  in  the  voyage,  except  that  we  went 
aground  occasionally,  and  the  bad  beginning  proved  like  many 
other  similar  affairs  in  life,  a  good  ending. 

We  steamed  past  the  city,  watching  the  grey  walls  of  Cairo, 
the  domes  and  minarets  of  the  mosques,  the  palaces  and  hovels, 
the  gardens  of  the  Island  of  Roda,  the  building  containing  the 
famous  Nilometer,  the  green  fields  of  the  valley,  the  glistening 
sands  of  the  desert,  the  yellow  hills  of  the  Mokattajn,  bounding 
the  Lybian  waste,  the  palm-trees  stippled  here  and  there,  singly 
and  in  clusters,  the  dahabeeahs,  with  their  long-sloping  sails  and 


A   WONDERFUL    STATUE.  535 

their  trim  and  jaunty  appearance,  the  native  boats  sunk  deep 
with  cargoes  of  food  destined  for  digestion  in  the  great  stomach 
of  the  city,  the  camels  and  donkeys  and  buffaloes,  on  the  bank  of 
the  river  the  half-dressed  or  almost  undressed  natives  working 
the  shadoofs  to  raise  water  for  irrigating  the  land,  the  groups  of 
natives  scattered  here  and  there  at  work  or  lazily  idling  away 
their  time,  and  over  all,  the  clear  sky  of  Egypt,  with  scarcely  a 
touch  of  color  and  with  no  mist  or  haze  to  keep  back  the  rays 
of  the  sun.  Away  to  the  west  were  the  pyramids  of  Gizeh,  and 
south  of  them  were  the  pyramids  of  Sakkarah,  among  the  burn- 
ing sands  and  overlooking  the  site  of  Memphis.  Eastward  were 
the  hills  that  border  the  Lybian  desert,  and  in  the  north  was  the 
spreading  valley  of  the  Nile.  As  we  steamed  on,  the  broad  val- 
ley disappeared,  and  the  hills  seemed  to  shut  in  close  upon  the 
river.  The  great  pyramid's  grew  faint  in  the  distance,  and  when 
the  sun  went  down,  they  were  just  perceptible  through  the  tops 
of  the  palm-trees. 

We  stopped  for  the  night  at  Badresheyn,  a  village  about  fifteen 
miles  above  Cairo  ;  we  were  to  lie  there  until  daylight,  as  these 
steamers  do  not  run  at  night.  From  this  point  passengers  on 
the  dahabeeahs  generally  make  an  excursion  to  the  site  of  Mem- 
phis, and  to  the  Apis  Mausoleum. 

As  for  Memphis  there  is  very  little  of  it.  A  half  buried  statue 
lying  on  its  face  is  shown  you,  and  there  are  a  few  substructions 
and  some  heaps  of  ruin.s.  There  are  some  statues  and  statuettes 
in  the  Museum  at  Cairo,  that  were  discovered  at  Memphis,  and 
the  sites  of  two  temples  have  been  traced.  I  went  to  Memphis 
with  a  party  early  in  January,  and  at  that  time  the  water  was  so 
high  that  most  of  the  famous  statue  was  invisible.  This  statue 
was  originally  about  fifty  feet  high,  and  hewn  from  a  single  block 
of  limestone  ;  it  stood  in  front  of  a  temple  and  is  supposed  to  be 
the  one  mentioned  by  Herodotus.  Memphis  was  used  as  a 
quarry  for  supplying  stone  for  the  construction  of  Cairo,  and 
hence  the  disappearance  of  the  ancient  city. 

The  ride  from  here  to  the  Apis  Mausoleum,  or  Serapeum  as  it 
is  frequently  called,  is  partly  through  a  grove  of  palm  trees  and 
partly  through  the  desert.  This  was  only  recently  discovered, 
and  rather  curiously  we  are  indebted  to  a  passage  in  Strabo,  for 


536  BURIAL    PLACE    OF    THE    SACRED    BULLS. 

the  mention  of  its  site.  M.  Mariette,  conservator  of  the  Mon- 
uments of  Ancient  Egypt,  found  it  in  1 860,  by  one  day  discovering 
the  head  of  a  sphinx  in  the  sand,  and  beneath  the  head  was  the 
body.  Mariette  then  thought  of  a  passage  in  Strabo  which  says, 
"  There  is  also  a  Serapeum  in  a  very  sandy  spot  where  drifts  of 
sand  are  raised  by  the  wind  to  such  a  degree  that  we  saw  some 
sphinxes  buried  up  to  their  heads  and  others  half  buried." 

Mariette  took  this  as  a  clue  and  went  to  work.  The  labor  was 
most  discouraging  as  the  sand  kept  falling  in  almost  as  fast  as  it 
was  taken  out.  An  avenue  six  hundred  feet  long  was  cleared 
out,  and  sometimes  it  was  necessary  to  dig  the  trench  sixty  or 
seventy  feet  deep.  A  hundred  and  fifty  sphinxes  were  discov- 
ered, besides  the  pedestals  of  many  others.  The  foundations  of 
the  temple  were  discovered  and  laid  bare  ;  many  statues  were 
found,  and  at  last  in  1861  the  Apis  Mausoleum  or  Burial  place  of 
the  Sacred  Bulls  was  opened.  The  avenue  and  the  foundations 
of  the  temple  are  again  covered  with  sand,  and  so  is  a  portion  of 
the  Mausoleum,  but  the  most  interesting  part  is  still  kept  open. 

We  left  our  donkeys  at  the  house  where  M.  Mariette  lived 
during  the  excavation,  and  accompanied  an  Arab  guide  to  the 
tomb.  Entering  through  a  door  and. descending  some  steps,  we 
were  in  the  vaults,  which  consist  of  parallel  galleries,  each  more 
than  two  hundred  yards  long  and  united  at  the  ends.  The  gal- 
leries are  hewn  out  of  the  solid  rock,  and  were  evidently  cut  with 
great  care,  but  there  is  nothing  very  remarkable  about  them.  The 
wonderful  feature  of  the  place  is  the  stone  coffins  in  which  the 
sacred  bulls  were  buried.  There  are  twenty-four  of  them  in  re- 
cesses, on  the  sides  of  the  galleries,  but  never  opposite  each 
other,  and  they  are  about  the  heaviest  things  in  the  coffin  line 
that  anybody  has  ever  seen.  They  vary  a  little  in  size,  but  the 
average  may  be  taken  at  thirteen  feet  long,  seven  feet  six  inches 
wide,  and  eleven  feet  high. 

Now  stop  and  think  before  you  go  on ;  stop  and  think  how 
large  a  room  it  would  take  to  hold  one  of  these  coffins  ;  well,  each 
coffin  is  one  solid  piece  of  granite,  from  the  quarries  at  Assouan, 
five  hundred  and  eighty  miles  up  the  Nile,  and  is  finished  as 
nicely  as  you  ever  saw  anything  in  the  granite  line.  Four  or  five 
persons  can  sit  comfortably  inside,  and  one  of  them  contains  the 


THE    MUMMIES    OF    EGYPT.  539 

table  and  chairs  where  the  Empress  Eugenie,  and  the  Prince  and 
Princess  of  Wales  took  lunch  when  they  came  here.  The  lid  of 
each  coffin  is  in  proportion  to  the  rest  of  the  work,  and  like  it  is 
of  a  single  piece  of  granite.  An  effort  was  made  a  few  years  ago 
to  remove  one  of  the  coffins,  but  it  was  unsuccessful. 

The  Egyptians  knew  some  things  that  we  don't.  We  can't 
move  these  stone  coffins  ;  they  moved  them  along  the  Nile  near- 
ly six  hundred  miles,  and  from  the  East  to  the  West  bank,  and 
put  them  in  these  galleries  underground  and  exactly  in  the  re- 
cesses where  they  wanted  them,  and  they  used  them  as  the  burial 
places  of  the  sacred  bulls  of  Memphis  ;  the  bulls  that  they  wor- 
shipped as  the  incarnation  of  divinity. 

All  the  region  around  here  was  a  burial  place,  and  many  exca- 
vations have  been  made  among  the  tombs.  Thousands  of  mum- 
mies have  been  found,  and  doubtless  thousands  more  might  be 
discovered  if  further  researches  were  made.  It  is  four  thousand 
years  since  some  of  these  mummied  gentlemen  were  pickled  and 
preserved,  and  they  have  kept  well  ;  you  may  find  them  to-day 
as  fresh  as  when  they  were  planted,  and  they  reflect  creditably 
upon  the  mummy-sharps  that  put  them  up,  and  also  upon  the 
wonderfully  dry  climate  of  Egypt.  I  half  suspect  that  the  cli- 
mate is  responsible  for  the  religious  faith  of  the  ancient  Egyp- 
tians, and  particularly  for  that  part  of  it  which  bade  them  bestow 
so  much  care  upon  their  tombs  and  the  preservation  of  the  body. 
Had  their  climate  been  like  that  of  London  or  New  York,  they 
would  have  constructed  a  different  religion,  as  they  would  have 
known  they  could  not  successfully  carry  out  the  mummy  part 
of  it. 

Not  far  from  the  Bull-Pits,  as  they  are  irreverently  called,  is  a 
portion  of  a  tomb  of  a  very  early  date,  which  is  known  as  the 
Tomb  of  Tih.  The  body  of  Mr.  Tih  was  buried  in  the  rock 
below,  and  the  portion  now  visible  is  the  entrance  chamber  to 
the  establishment.  The  interesting  feature  about  it  is  the  mass 
•of  sculptures  and  paintings  on  the  walls.  Most  of  them  are 
done  in  low  relief,  and  very  well  done  too.  The  drawing  and 
execution  show  great  artistic  skill,  and  some  of  the  groups  evince 
a  knowledge  of  perspective.  The  scenes  represented  are  sup- 
posed to  be  incidents  in  the  life  of  Tih  ;  they  represent  him  at 
home  and  in  the  field,  and  also  at  the  chase. 


540  FUN,  FIFTY-SIX    CENTURIES    AGO. 

Till  was  a  priest  who  lived  at  Memphis  about  the  Vth  dynasty 
of  the  ancient  empire  ;  that  is  to  say,  about  thirty-seven  hundred 
years  before  Christ,  or  fifty-six  hundred  years  ago.  We  wont  be 
particular  about  a  year  or  two.  He  is  dead  now,  or  at  all  events 
they  buried  him  here.  To  describe  all  the  scenes  pictured  on 
the  walls  of  this  tomb,  would  keep  me  writing  for  a  week,  and 
then  I  shouldn't  be  through.  In  some  of  them  Tih  is  hunting 
crocodiles  and  hippopotami  ;  in  others  he  is  looking  on,  while 
his  servants  till  the  fields  ;  in  others  he  is  superintending  the 
building  of  a  wall  ;  and  so  on  through  all  the  incidents  of  a  life  of 
that  period.  The  life  of  the  Ancient  Empire  can  be  studied 
from  the  pictures  on  this  and  other  tombs  of  the  locality,  and 
we  can  learn  what  they  did  and  how  they  did  it,  what  animals 
they  used,  and  what  most  delighted  them  to  engage  in.  Some 
of  the  pictures  on  the  Tomb  of  Tih  have  a  comic  touch  about 
them,  and  show  that  there  was  fun  even  so  far  back  as  fifty-six 
centuries  ago. 

There  is  one  picture  which  shows  some  donkeys,  brought  up 
to  be  laden,  and  they  are  raising  their  heels  in  a  miscellaneous 
sort  of  a  way,  and  making  things  rather  lively  for  those  who  are 
trying  to  control  them.  In  another  picture,  where  some  men  are 
fishing,  one  has  fallen  from  the  boat,  and  his  friends  are  pulling 
him  out  of  the  mud.  In  another,  a  man  has  evidently  been  pull- 
ing at  a  rope,  which  has  broken,  and  left  him  to  fall  in  an  attitude 
which  is  decidedly  comical. 

Evidently  Tih  was  no  slouch.  He  got  up  his  tomb  regardless 
of  expense,  and  made  it  the  best  of  the  kind.  The  Egyptians 
often  spent  more  money  on  their  tombs  than  on  their  houses  ; 
they  considered  that  they  were  only  temporary  occupants  of  their 
houses,  but  that  the  tomb  was  to  be  their  eternal  dwelling  place. 
The  tomb  was  the  real  home,  and  hence  the  effort  to  surround 
the  occupant  with  the  scenes  he  had  witnessed  on  earth. 

One  of  the  pyramids  of  Sakkarah  is  built  in  degrees  or  ter- 
races, is  nearly  two  hundred  feet  high,  and,  next  to  Gizeh,  is  the 
largest  of  the  pyramids.  It  is  supposed  to  belong  to  the  period 
of  the  First  Dynasty  of  the  Ancient  Empire,  and  to  be  the  oldest 
monument,  not  only  in  Egypt,  but  in  the  whole  world.  Accord- 
ing to  several  archaeologists,  it  was  erected  five  thousand  years 


BRICKS    MADE    BY    THE    ISRAELITES. 


541 


before  Christ  It  is  built,  not  of  stone,  but  of  sun-dried  brick, 
and  though  portions  of  it  had  crumbled,  they  have  not  altered  the 
general  appearance  of  the  pyramid.  Could  you  wish  for  better 
evidence  of  the  preservative  qualities  of  the  climate  of  Egypt .'' 
This  pyramid  was  opened  in  1825,  but  nothing  of  consequence 
was  found  in  it.  I  had  had  quite  enough  of  climbing  at  Gizeh, 
and  therefore  did  not  attempt  to  ascend  here,  and  I  have  not 
heard  of  any  other  person  trying  to  climb  it. 

Some  of  the  archaeologists  say  that  the  bricks  of  which  this 
pyramid  is  composed  were  made  by  the  Israelites,  during  their 
captivity.  I  shouldn't  be  surprised  if  this  was  the  case.  I  cer- 
tainly don't  know  that  the  bricks  were  not  made  by  them. 


CHAPTER      XLIII. 

LIFE  ON  THE  BANKS   OF  THE  NILE.— COPTS,   JUGGLERS,  AND 
THIEVES.— AMUSING  EXPERIENCES. 

Through  an  Arab  village— Creating  a  Sensation — The  "Doubter"  alarmed— The 
Professor  perpetrates  a  hoax — The  Egyptian  Saratoga — An  Oriental  Post-Office — 
A  queer  Town — Specimens  of  Ancient  Art — A  wooden  statue  three  thousand  years 
old — A  Coptic  Convent—"  Backsheesh,  Howadji !" — Carrying  money  in  their 
mouths — Sturdy  Beggars — An  expert  Swimmer — The  Copts,  who  are  they  ? — Skil- 
ful swindlers— Sugar  Mills  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile— Egyptian  Jugglers— A  Snake- 
Charmer — Adroit  Thieves— A  Melancholy  Experience  in  Donkey-riding. 

I  WAS  up  early  on  the  first  morning  out  from  Cairo,  and  found 
the  sun  rising  through  a  thin  mist,  which  cleared  away  very 
speedily.  Our  dragoman  went  ashore  to  get  a  supply  of  milk  for 
the  breakfast  table,  from  the  village  opposite,  and  Gustave  and  I 
followed  him,  and  were  soon  in  a  tangle  of  narrow  lanes,  that 
were  very  crooked  and  would  greatly  puzzle  a  stranger  to  find  his 
way  among  them. 

Three  or  four  times  we  brought  up  into  culs-de-sac,  or  blind 
alleys,  and  had  to  force  our  way  back  and  try  again.  Dogs 
barked  and  children  gathered  around  us,  and  some  buffalo  cows 
took  fright  at  the  apparition  of  a  couple  of  Europeans  and  fled 
into  one  of  the  houses.  Chickens  on  a  house  top  flew  away,  as 
if  we  had  come  to  eat  them,  and  some  of  the  Arabs  came  out 
with  expressions  on  their  faces  the  reverse  of  pleasant.  Evi- 
dently we  had  created  a  sensation,  but  not  a  very  agreeable  one. 

The  milk  was  soon  obtained,  and  we  obeyed  the  warning 
whistle  and  went  on  board.     The  voyage  through  the  day  was 

(542) 


THE    PROFESSORS   EXPLANATION.  543 

not  specially  interesting,  as  there  are  no  ruins  of  interest  on 
this  part  of  the  river,  and  the  banks  are  rather  monotonous. 
One  hour  was  much  like  another,  and  the  sights  were  nearly  the 
same — crumbling  banks,  shadoofs,  donkeys,  camels  and  Arabs, 
sand-bars  and  islands,  palm  trees  fringing  the  horizon  or  stand- 
ing out  in  front  of  the  grey  hills  of  the  desert,  the  sandy  waste 
in  the  distance,  and  the  river,  covered  more  or  less  thickly  with 
Arab  boats. 

These  boats,  when  laden,  were  sunk  ratlier  deeply,  and  boards 
were  placed  along  the  sides  to  prevent  the  water  breaking  over. 
The  "Doubter"  was  puzzled  to  know  why  they  always  put  these 
boards  at  the  sides  of  the  boats.  The  Professor  (this  was  the 
name  we  sometimes  gave  to  Gustave)  came  to  his  relief  with 
the  following  explanation  : 

"  The  Nile  rises  every  year,  and  they  put  these  boards  up 
while  the  river  is  high  to  prevent  the  water  coming  into  the 
boats,  just  as  they  build  up  the  banks  to  keep  the  fields  from 
being  drowned  out." 

The  "  Doubter "  was  satisfied  for  a  moment,  but  only  for  a 
moment. 

"  But  will  the  ,boats  float  on  the  water,  whether  the  river  is 
high  or  low,"  he  asked,  "  and  if  they  do,  what  is  the  use  of  the 
side-boards  at  one  time  more  than  another  .'' " 

The  Professor  was  equal  to  the  emergency,  and  explained  that 
the  rise  of  the  river  was  so  rapid,  and  the  boats  were  so  slow  in 
their  motion,  that  the  flood  frequently  overtook  and  swamped 
them.     There  was  no  further  conversation  on  this  topic. 

One  of  the  points  passed  early  in  the  morning  was  Helwan, 
which  contains  some  remarkable  springs  of  sulphur.  They  were 
known  to  the  early  Egyptians,  and  it  is  recorded  that  one  of  the 
kings  used  to  send  leprous  persons  there,  in  the  hope  of  curing 
them,  or,  at  all  events,  of  separating  them  from  the  rest  of  the 
people.  They  have  been  quite  neglected  in  later  times,  until  a 
few  years  ago,  when  their  virtues  were  discovered  and  a  bath- 
house and  hotel  were  erected  there.  They  are  much  visited  by 
Europeans  and  Turks,  and  some  persons  have  been  benefited 
by  them.  An  onmibus  runs  there  twice  a  week  from  Cairo,  and 
much  of  the  time  the  hotel  is  full.  The  place  is  in  the  desert, 
31 


544  STATUES,    SIX    THOUSAND    YEARS    OLD. 

a  little  distance  from  the  river,  and  the  absence  of  shade  trees, 
grass,  or  anything  of  the  sort,  makes  the  spot  rather  dreary  for 
a  lengthened  stay.  But  the  place  is  gradually  growing  fashion- 
able, and  when  it  becomes  the  mode  to  go  there  I  fancy  they 
will  have  more  hotels  and  society  enough  to  make  the  time  pass 
without  too  much  stupidity. 

In  the  afternoon  we  reached  Beni-Soef,  and  took  a  stroll 
through  the  town,  which  has  a  population  of  about  five  thou- 
sand, and  can  boast  of  a  fairly-stocked  bazaar.  We  saw  nothing 
of  importance  in  our  walk  that  we  had  not  already  seen  at 
Cairo.  I  strayed  from  the  party  and  hired  a  boy  to  direct  me 
to  the  post-ofifice,  where  I  posted  a  letter  for  America.  The 
place  was  closed,  but  luckily  I  had  the  proper  stamps  on  the 
letter,  so  that  there  was  nothing  to  do  beyond  dropping  the 
missive  into  the  box. 

The  Egyptian  postal  department  is  quite  well  managed  ;  the 
postmaster  general  is  an  Italian,  and  the  most  of  his  employes 
are  of  his  nationality.  The  office  at  Cairo  is  in  a  large  building, 
specially  erected  for  it,  and  you  have  no  trouble  in  finding  the 
delivery  windows  and  in  obtaining  the  proper  stamps,  when  you 
want  them.  They  pay  great  attention  to  the  delivery  of  letters 
to  foreigners,  and  a  placard  in  all  the  hotels  informs  persons 
about  to  ascend  the  Nile,  that  by  leaving  their  addresses  at  the 
office,  they  can  have  their  mail  matter  forwarded  to  any  point  on 
the  river  they  may  designate.  The  steamboats  carry  letters  to 
parties  on  dahabeeahs,  and  several  times  the  boat  was  stopped 
to  deliver  such  parcels. 

The  pyramid  of  Meidoon  in  this  vicinity  is  supposed  to  be 
older  than  any  of  the  pyramids  of  Gizeh,  as  it  was  probably 
erected  by  the  predecessor  of  Cheops.  All  around  it  are  tombs, 
and  some  of  them  have  been  explored  with  the  most  gratifying 
results.  In  one  of  them  two  stone  statues,  in  perfect  preserva- 
tion, were  found  in  1872,  and  are  now  in  the  Museum  at  Cairo. 
They  belong  to  the  Illd  Dynasty,  and  are  consequently  more 
than  six  thousand  years  old.  The  work  on  them  is  admirable, 
and  they  are  evidently  likenesses,  and  excellent  ones  too.  The 
eyes  are  made  of  crystal,  with  a  piece  of  black  porphyry  for  the 
pupils,    and  this  combination   gives  them  a  remarkably  life-like 


"BACKSHEESH,  HOWADJI.  547 

appearance.  I  have  several  times  lingered  in  front  of  them  in 
admiration  of  their  excellence,  and  one  day,  while  I  was  stand- 
ing there,  the  director  of  the  museum  said  : 

"  You  should  see  them  late  in  the  afternoon,  when  the  slant- 
ing rays  of  light  fall  upon  them  ;  they  sometimes  look  as  if 
ready  to  step  out  and  speak,  and  seem  much  more  human  than 
inanimate." 

The  art  of  sculpture  has  not  advanced  as  much  as  many  per- 
sons imagine. 

There  is  in  the  museum  another  statue  of  about  the  same  age, 
but  it  is  made  of  wood  ;  it  represents  a  man  standing  erect,  and 
is  about  half  the  natural  size,  and  as  life-like  as  any  piece  of 
work  that  ever  issued  from  a  Greek  or  Roman  studio.  Its  eyes 
are  inserted  within  a  closing  covering  of  bronze,  which  serves  for 
the  lids  ;  the  eye  itself  consists  of  opaque,  white  quartz,  with  a 
piece  of  rock  crystal  in  the  centre,  as  a  pupil  ;  there  is  a  glitter- 
ing point  beneath  this  crystal,  so  that  the  resemblance  to  life  is 
almost  perfect.  The  head  and  body  are  remarkably  well  exe- 
cuted, and  evidently  the  figure  is  a  good  likeness  of  the  person 
represented,  who  was  not  a  king,  or  a  divinity,  but  simply  a 
sheik-el-bcled,  or  village  chief.  The  statue  was  complete  when 
found,  with  the  exception  of  the  feet,  which  have  been  supplied, 
to  enable  the  figure  to  be  placed  on  a  pedestal.  Originally,  the 
statue  was  covered  with  a  slight  coating  of  stucco,  painted  red 
and  white,  but  this  is  nearly  gone  now. 

On  a  bluff,  on  the  east  bank  of  the  river,  there  is  a  Coptic 
convent,  many  of  whose  inmates  are  accustomed  to  visit  passing 
boats,  and  beg  for  "backsheesh."  We  had  a  visit  from  them  ;  the 
first  that  was  known  of  their  coming  was  by  a  rush  of  two  or 
three  passengers  to  the  after  part  of  the  steamer.  They  were 
followed  by  all  the  others  then  on  deck,  and  the  cause  of  the 
movement  was  seen  in  the  small  boats,  which  we  towed  astern. 

A  tall,  muscular  fellow,  perfectly  nude,  was  standing  there  and 
gesticulating  to  the  passengers  with  the  explanation,  "  back- 
sheesh, howadji ;  ana  Chritiane  "  ("a  present,  gentlemen,  I  am  a 
Christian.") 

His  dress,  or  the  absence  of  it,  caused  the  ladies  to  make 
a  precipitate  retreat,  and  to   fall   again   to  their  reading,  with 


548  THK    COPTS — WHO    ARE    THEV  ? 

an  appearance  of  deep  absorption.  Soon  another  beggar  joined 
the  fellow,  and  we  tossed  a  few  coppers  into  the  boat.  They 
took  the  money  in  their  mouths,  as  they  had  no  other  way  of 
carrying  it,  and  one  of  them  got  so  much  copper  that  it  nearly 
strangled  him.  About  a  dozen  made  the  attempt  to  board  the 
steamer,  and  more  than  half  of  them  succeeded.  Remember 
that  the  steamer  was  going  at  full  speed  against  the  stream  and 
you  will  wonder  how  they  got  on  board.  I  watched  one  fellow, 
and  here  is  his  mode  of  operations. 

These  men  swim,  not  after  the  Occidental  manner,  but  with  a 
hand-over-hand  motion,  analagous  to  the  swimming  of  a  dog. 
When  a  man  wanted  to  board  the  steamer,  he  took  a  position 
near  her  supposed  track,  so  that  when  she  passed  him  the  wheels 
were  not  more  than  a  yard  from  his  head.  1  he  instant  the  wheel 
had  gone  by,  he  struck  out  most  vigorously  towards  the  stern  of 
the  steamer,  and  by  great  effort  was  able  to  climb  into  the  small 
boat,  towing  behind  us.  Formerly  they  came  on  the  steamer 
itself,  and  rendered  it  necessary  for  the  ladies  to  retreat  to  the 
cabins,  but  at  present  they  can  come  no  further  than  the  small 
boats. 

The  Copts  are  supposed  to  be  the  descendants  of  the  ancient 
Egyptians,  but  they  have  become  so  mixed  with  the  Arabs  and 
others,  that  it  is  hard  to  say  what  they  are.  They  form  about 
one-sixteenth  of  the  population,  and  the  most  of  them  are  Chris- 
tians ;  the  name  is  generally  applied  only  to  the  Christian  na- 
tives, but  there  are  many  Copts  who  are  Mohammedans. 

Their  ancient  language  is  almost  lost ;  it  is  used  in  the 
churches  for  reading  the  prayers,  in  the  same  way  that  the 
Catholics  use  Latin,  and  the  Russians  the  Slavonic.  Their  lan- 
guage in  daily  life  is  the  Egyptian  Arabic  of  the  rest  of  the 
country  ;  as  a  rule,  they  are  better  educated  than  the  rest  of 
the  people,  and  are  extensively  employed  as  clerks  and  book- 
keepers, not  only  in  shops,  but  in  various  government  ofifices. 
They  have  a  cleaner  and  better  kept  appearance  on  the  whole 
than  the  Moslem  Arabs,  and  some  of  them  are  such  great  ras- 
cals, and  show  so  much  skill  in  swindling,  as  to  indicate  consid- 
erable familiarity  with  the  principles  of  civilization. 

The  Copts  were  among  the  earliest  converts  to  Christianity, 


AN    EGYPTIAN    SUGAR    MILL. 


549 


but  they  embraced  heretical  doctrines,  which  received  the  denun- 
ciation of  the  Church  in  the  sixth  century.  Several  of  their 
churches  may  be  seen  in  the  Festal  quarter  of  Cairo. 

We  passed  in  this  part  of  the  river  a  great  many  sugar-mills, 
most  of  them  in  full  operation,  as  it  was  then  the  proper  season 
of  the  cane-harvest.  The  boat  stopped  at  Minieh  long  enough 
to  allow  us  to  visit  one  of  these  mills. 


SUGAR  CANE  SELLER  AT  MINIEH. 


The  mill  is  on  a  grand  scale,  the  machinery  for  crushing  the 
cane  and  reducing  the  piece  to  sugar  is  all  of  French  manufac- 
ture, and  is  of  the  most  perfect  character.  I  was  unable  to 
ascertain  what  amount  of  sugar  is  made  there,  or  at  the  other 
points,  but  the  product  ought  to  be  very  large,  to  judge  by  the 
size  of  the  mills  and  their  number.  The  mill  at  Minieh  covers 
a  large  area,  and  is  so  arranged  that  from  the  time  the  cane  enters 


550  JUGGLERS    AND    SNAKE    CHARMERS. 

the  crushers  until  the  dry  sugar  is  ready,  there  is  no  occasion  for 
lifting  or  handling  the  material,  except  in  a  few  instances.  The 
sugar  culture  ought  to  pay  a  handsome  profit,  but  I  was  told  that 
it  is  really  a  loss,  and  that  the  Khedive  would  gladly  sell  it  out 
to  private  parties.  The  cause  of  this  unprofitableness  is  due,  I 
was  told,  to  the  frauds  of  the  managers  of  the  mills.  Such  a 
state  of  affairs  is  not  confined  to  Egypt  alone ;  there  are  many 
countries  where  government  factories  have  been  run  at  a  loss, 
but  when  turned  into  private  hands,  have  yielded  a  handsome 
profit. 

One  of  the  great  wants  of  Egypt  is  the  discovery  of  coal-  At 
present  fuel  is  costly,  and  all  the  coal  used  in  the  mills  and  on 
railways  and  steamers,  must  be  imported,  and,  of  course,  at  heavy 
expense.  Explorations  have  been  made  on  the  upper  Nile,  and 
elsewhere,  in  the  hope  of  finding  coal,  but  they  have  not  yet  been 
successful.  Small  deposits  have  been  found  in  isolated  localities, 
but  none  that  could  be  profitably  worked.  Lower  Egypt  does 
not  offer  much  hope  to  the  coal-searcher,  but  there  are  parts  of 
the  Soudan  where  the  prospect  is  better.  A  wide  coal-bed,  ac- 
cessible from  the  river,  so  as  to  ensure  a  low  cost,  would  be  a 
great  boon  to  the  country.  There  is  very  little  wood  for  fuel, 
and  among  the  peasants,  dry  camel-dung  is  extensively  used. 

After  looking  at  the  sugar  mill,  we  strolled  through  the  town 
of  Minieh,  and  at  the  farther  side,  found  a  large  crowd  of  people. 
They  were  looking  at  a  juggler,  who  was  performing  a  variety  of 
tricks,  none  of  them  specially  interesting,  ard  compelling  a  couple 
of  small  boys  to  go  through  a  comic  dialogue,  that  evidently 
pleased  the  people  very  much,  to  judge  by  their  immoderate 
laughter.  The  fellow  had  a  large  snake,  which  he  wound  around 
his  neck,  and  had  taught  to  dance,  but  his  snakc.-charming  was 
evidently  the  least  of  his  performances. 

Occasionally  he  allowed  the  snake  to  run  on  the  ground,  and 
when  thus  free,  the  reptile  went  around  the  circle  with  his  head 
raised,  and  created  a  great  deal  of  disturbance  among  the  boys 
in  the  front  row. 

The  snake-charmers  are  a  peculiar  class  in  Egypt ;  they  will 
go  to  houses,  and  for  a  stipulated  sum,  will  charm  snakes  frOm 
the  walls  or  other  localities,  and  they  perform  their  work  so  well 


A   REMARKABLE    DONKEY.  551 

that  nobody  has  ever  succeeded  in  detecting  them  in  a  fraud  I 
do  not  mean  to  say  that  they  can  find  snakes  where  none  exist ; 
their  art  consists  in  enticing  snakes  that  may  be  in  a  house  to 
come  out  from  their  concealment,  and  allow  themselves  to  be  put 
in  a  bag  and  carried  away.  They  do  this  by  burning  a  sort  of 
incense,  and  playing  a  doleful  tune  on  a  reed  flute. 

Our  introduction  to  sight-seeing,  at  Beni-Hassan,  in  upper 
Egypt,  was  not  prepossessing.  There  were  donkeys  on  the  bank, 
without  saddles  or  bridles,  and  the  worst  donkeys  that  I  ever  saw 
offered  for  anybody  to  ride.  The  people  were  as  bad  as  the 
donkeys,  and  presented  a  forlorn  appearance;  the  inhabitants 
of  this  locality  were  formerly  famous  for  their  thieving  propensi- 
ties, and  so  bad  were  they  in  this  respect  that  Ibrahim  Pasha 
sent  a  military  force  to  destroy  their  village  and  scatter  its  occu- 
pants. It  would  not  be  safe  for  a  small-boat  to  lie  there  now 
over  night,  except  with  a  very  watchful  guard.  They  beset  us 
when  we  went  on  shore,  and  there  was  a  crowd  around  me,  with 
a  dozen  donkeys  offering  at  once.  I  found  a  donkey  that  was 
fairly  decent,  but,  while  my  back  was  turned,  somebody  else 
mounted  him,  and  I  was  forced  to  take  another  and  a  poorer  beast. 

The  donkey  that  I  obtained  must  have  been  one  of  those  pos- 
sessed by  the  Beni-Hassanites  when  their  village  was  destroyed 
by  the  Pasha's  order,  forty  years  ago,  and  I  am  not  sure  but  that 
he  dated  from  one  of  the  dynasties  of  ancient  Egypt.  He  had 
much  less  hair  than  mud  on  his  back,  and  I  suspected  that  he 
passed  his  time  in  a  mud-hole  when  not  otherwise  engaged.  The 
saddle  fitted  him  in  a  manner  fearful  and  wonderful  to  behold, 
and  there  was  some  doubt  as  to  whether  it  touched  him  any- 
where. When  I  mounted  him,  he  sat  down  in  a  manner  perfectly 
natural  for  a  dog,  but  not  altogether  so  for  a  donkey.  The  result 
of  this  performance  was  to  send  me  over  backwards  and  leave 
me  with  my  shoulders  on  the  ground  and  my  feet  in  the  air.  I 
found  this  position  inconvenient,  and  also  provocative  of  mirth 
in  others,  and  therefore  did  not  long  maintain  it.  Even  the 
donkey  boy  laughed,  a  proceeding  which  showed  how  little  he 
knew  of  polite  society. 

The  next  time  I  mounted  I  sat  on  the  beast's  shoulders  and 
prevented  his  sitting  down.     But  I  could  not  prevent  his  kneel- 


552 


A    HARROWING    TALE. 


ing,  and  I  leave  you  to  imagine  the  result.  A  regard  for  my  per- 
sonal feelings  prevents  my  giving  a  detailed  description  of  this 
harrowing  tale.  It  was  nothing  else,  and  I  think  I  must  have 
harrowed,  with  my  hands,  feet,  and  nose,  not  less  than  a  square 

rod  of  land  in  the  vicinity 
of  that  donkey,  and  I  also 
harrowed  him  and  the 
donkey  boy,  and  would 
have  served  the  by- 
standers likewise,  if 
they  had  not  been  more 
numerous  than  I  was. 
I  didn't  feel  a  bit 
amiable. 

At  last  we  were  off. 
I  rode  my  donkey  on 
foot  most  of  the  time, 
and  we  went  along  very 
well  in  this  way,  he  walk- 
ing about  two  yards  be- 
hind  me,  and  very 
amiable  and  patient, 
while  I  was  as  cross  as  a 
man  whose  shirts  haven't  come  home  from  the  wash-woman. 

We  did  about  six  miles  altogether  that  day,  and  I  think  I 
walked  altogether  about  seven  miles.  To  sit  on  him  was  a  toil 
worse  than  walking,  and  his  best  gait  was  when  he  was  standing 
still.  He  was  splendid  on  that  part  of  the  business,  and  I  don't 
think  there  was  ever  a  donkey  that  could  stand  stiller  than  he. 

He  was  about  the  size  of  a  Newfoundland  dog,  so  that  when  I 
mounted  him,  my  feet  touched  the  ground  on  both  sides.  And 
yet  he  was  one  of  the  best,  or  rather  one  of  the  least  bad,  of  the 
lot.  There  were  only  two  or  three  that  surpassed  him  in  per- 
sonal appearance  and  strength. 

Not  one  of  our  party  will  ever  forget  that  donkey-ride  to  see 
the  "  Antiquities  of  Egypt  ;"  and  when  at  last  the  hardships  of 
the  journey  were  over,  and  we  arrived  at  the  Ancient  Tombs — 
the  handiwork  of  man  centuries  ago — we  forgot  our  sore  spots 


AN    INCONVK.NItNT    PubinOiN. 


ANCIENT    PAINTINGS.  553 

and  lame  bones,  and  our  ill-nature  gave  way  to  curiosity  and  won- 
der at  the  scene  around  us. 

These  tombs,  or  grottos,  are  hewn  in  the  solid  rock,  part  of 
them  on  the  bluff,  fronting  the  river,  and  the  rest  in  a  ravine, 
or  valley,  that  runs  inland  from  the  alluvial  land  of  the  Nile.  The 
rock  is  a  soft  limestone,  not  difficult  to  quarry,  and  quite  possibly 
when  these  grottos  were  made,  the  stone  may  have  been  softer 
than  now.  The  excavations  belong  mostly  to  the  eleventh  and 
twelfth  dynasties,  and  therefore  are  not  as  old  as  the  pyramids  of 
Gizeh  and  Sakkarah,  but  older  than  the  temples  and  monuments 
at  Thebes.  They  are  old  enough  for  all  practical  purposes,  and 
are  very  much  out  of  repair. 

The  walls  are  covered  with  paintings  and  inscriptions,  that 
throw  much  light  on  the  manners  and  customs  of  the  time,  and 
it  would  take  more  space  than  I  can  spare  to  describe  them. 
Among  the  most  interesting  is  a  series  of  paintings  representing 
the  arrival  of  some  strangers  in  Egypt  ;  they  were  at  first  sup- 
posed to  be  Joseph  and  his  brethren,  but  this  can  hai'dly  be,  as 
the  tomb  was  made  several  hundred  years  before  Joseph's  arrival. 
In  one  of  the  tombs  there  are  representations  of  various  trades- 
men at  work,  and  among  them  are  barbers,  shoemakers,  painters^ 
tailors,  glass-blowers,  and  goldsmiths.  There  are  also  people 
playing  ball,  wrestling,  and  throwing  heavy  stones,  and  in  one 
place  a  couple  of  patrons  of  the  prize  ring  are  indulging  in  the 
noble  art  of  manly  disfiguration. 

The  tombs,  or  grottos,  are  square  or  oblong  chambers,  cut 
in  the  rock,  and  the  most  of  them  are  so  well  lighted  through 
their  door- ways,  that  candles  are  not  needed.  In  some  instances 
several  chambers  are  connected,  and  some  of  them  have  wells 
leading  to  pits,  below  where  was  the  real  tomb.  They  are  well 
above  the  valley,  out  of  the  reach  of  the  highest  inundations,  and 
•from  their  front  there  is  quite  a  pretty  view.  In  front  of  some 
of  them  the  rock  is  hewn  into  pillars  and  columns,  that  look  at 
first  glance  as  thouq,h  brought  from  elsewhere. 


CHAPTER     XLIV. 


ADVENTURES   IN   UPPER   EGYPT.— FUN   AND   FROLIC   WITH 
THE  NATIVES. 

Siout,  the  Capital  of  Upper  Egyp' — The  Pasha's  Palace — An  Egyptian  Market-day 
— A  Swift  Boat — Going  the  r  )unds  on  a  Donkey — Town  Scenes — The  Bazaars — 
Buying  a  Donkey — Tinkers,  Peddlers,  and  Cobblers  at  work — A  Curiosity  Shop — 
Thiee  Card  Monte  in  the  land  of  the  Pharaohs  — Fighting  the  Tiger — The  Professor 
takes  a  Hand — An  ignominious  Defeat — A  doleful  Tale — A  River  where  the  Wind 
is  always  Jair — The  Temple  and  Tablet  of  Abydos — "  Backsheesh"  as  a  Medicine — 
Arab  Villages  in  an  Inundation — The  Garden  of  the  Valley — Fun  with  the  Natives 
— A  constant  resource  for  a  Practical  Joker — Scrambling  for  Money — A  severe  Joke. 

OlOUT,  or  Assiout,  is  a  large  town,  with  about  twenty-five 
^  thousand  inhabitants,  among  whom  there  are  said  to  be  not 
far  from  a  thousand  Christians.  Its  bazaars  are  quite  extensive, 
and  some  of  them  reminded  me  of  those  of  Cairo. 

The  town  stands  a  couple  of  miles  from  the  river,  and  there  is 
a  broad  avenue  leading  to  it,  with  a  border  of  fine  shade  trees. 
The  entrance  to  the  town  is  through  an  old  gateway,  that  is  quite 
picturesque,  and  evidently  formed  a  strong  defence  at  the  time 
it  was  erected. 

Siout  is  the  capital  of  the  province  of  the  same  name,  and  the 
most  important  town  of  Upper  Egypt.  It  contains  some  hand- 
some mosques,  several  baths  and  some  fine  houses,  all  in  the  Arab 
style.  It  was  formerly  a  great  resort  for  caravans  from  Darfoor 
and  other  places  in  the  interior  of  Africa,  but  latterly  the  trade 
with  those  regions  is  much  reduced. 

It  was  an  hour  before  our  mid-day  meal  when  we  reached  the 
town,  and  immediately  after  lunch  we  mounted  the  waiting  don- 
keys— much  better  than  those  at  Beni-Hassan — and  started  out. 

(554) 


fm\ " 


n  O  ■■' 


A    MARKET    DAY    IN    UPPER    EGYPT. 


557 


Our  first  visit  was  to  some  tombs  cut  in  the  side  of  the  mountain, 
overlooking  the  valley  ;  they  are  quite  extensive,  and  were  the 
burial  places  of  Lycopolis,  the  ancient  city,  which  occupied  the 
place  where  Siout  now  stands. 

The  present  city  is  modern,  only  about  twenty-five  hundred 
years  old.  and  it  has  borne  its  present  name  through  that  period. 

One  of  the  effects  of  travelling  in  Egypt  is,  that  you  get  in  the 
way  of  regarding  nothing  as  an- 
cient that  has  less  than  three 
thousand  years  of  age.  When 
you  get  back  to  Rome  and  Athens, 
the  ruins  there  seem  like  those  of 
a  house  of  a  first  settler  in  Chi- 
cago or  St.  Louis.  Nothing  under 
thirty  centuries  will  be  regarded 
as  antique. 

It  happened  to  be  market  day 
when  we  reached  Siout,  and  as 
ode  into  the  town,  we  found 
the  public  square  crowded  with 
people.  In  the  square  there 
were  large  quantities  of  sugarcane, 
palm  stalks,  squashes,  peas  and 
beans  exposed  for  sale,  and  the 
natives  were  squatted  around 
them,  or  walking  slowly  about. 
The  edge  of  the  square  was  fringed 
with  a  lot  of  solemn  old  Arabs, 
smoking  their  pipes  and  giv- 
ing their  whole  minds  to  the 
business,  as  they  squatted  in  front  of  the  wall, 
versally  enjoyed  by  all  classes  of  the  Egyptians 


NARGEELEH. 


Smoking  is  uni- 
There  are  many 

men  who  are  rarely  seen  without  a  pipe  in  their  hand,  and  many 
of  the  wealthy  people  may  be  seen  on  the  street,  attended  by  a 
servant,  who  solemnly  walks  behind  carrying  his  master's  pipe. 
The  flexible  tube  of  the  "  Nargccleli'  is  often  seven  or  eight  feet 
long,  and  its  great  length  allows  the  smoke  to  cool  before  enter- 
ing the  mouth. 


558 


BUYING    A    DONKEY. 


Camels  and  donkeys  were  very  numerous,  and  you  had  to  look 
sharp  to  prevent  being  run  over.  The  Professor  was  nearly  over- 
turned by  one  of  the  camels,  or  rather  by  the  load  of  sugar  canes 
that  protruded  on  each  side  of  the  animal's  back,  and  if  I  had  not 
pulled  him  out  of  the  way  suddenly,  he  would  have  gone  into  a 
basket  of  eggs,  with  great  detriment  to  both  the  merchandise 
and  himself. 

Just  outside  the  town  was  the   market  place  for  donkeys,  and 

dozens  of  these  animals  were  stand- 
ing there,  awaiting  purchasers. 
We  enquired  the  prices  of  some, 
but  the  Arabs  knew  we  were  not 
likely  to  be  purchasers,  and  so 
they  named  exorbitant  figures.  A 
fair  donkey  can  be  bought  for 
twenty-five  or  thirty  dollars,  and 
a  good  one  for  forty  or  fifty  Prices 
range  considerably  above  that,  but 
they  are  for  fancy  animals  of  extra 
fine  appearance.  Twenty  pounds 
will  purchase  a  donkey  of  much 
style  and  many  fine  qualities. 

I  have  a  confession  to  make, 
which  is  to  be  confidential  I 
gambled  that  day  at  Siout,  and 
have  felt  badly  about  it  ever  since. 
The  way  of  it  was  this. 

The  Professor  and  I  were  walk- 
ing in   the  market  place,  looking 
at   the   crowd  of   country   people 
SIOUT  EGG  MERCHANT.  and  thclr  wares,  and  at  the  tink- 

ers, cobblers,  and  blacksmiths  at  work  in  the  open  air,  at  the  cafes 
with  their  patrons  smoking  their  long  pipes  and  sipping  coffee 
from  little  cups,  at  the  peddlers  of  cakes  and  oranges,  and  other 
edible  things,  and  at  the  general  confusion  and  bustle  that  went 
on  with  the  most  perfect  good  nature. 

While  the  Professor  was  bargaining  for  some  old  coins — he  had 
a  mania  for  them  and  was  always  ready  to  buy  cheap — I  made  a 


THREE    CARD    MONTE. 


559 


discovery  which  recalled  California,  Pike's  Peak,  the  Mississippi 
River,  and  Coney  Island  all  at  once. 

An  Arab  of  unusually  dark  complexion  had  a  crowd  around 
him,  and  was  playing  three  card  monte,  the  regular  game,  just  as 
I  have  seen  it  many  times  in  America.  He  was  squatted  in  front 
of  a  strip  of  cloth,  which  he  spread  on  the  ground  and  used  as  a 


EGYrXIAN    GAMBLERS. 


table,  and  he  threw  the  cards  with  the  skill  that  comes  from  long 
practice. 

I  thought  I  could  name  the  winning  card,  and  so  I  ven- 
tured a  copper  piastre — about  a  cent — on  my  opinion.  Many  a 
man  in  America  has  thought  he  could  name  the  card,  and  his 
faith  has  been  lost  in  sight  and  cost  him  a  great  deal  of  money  ;  I 
never  ventured  to  try  it  among  the   sharpers  of  my  native  land, 


560  FIGHTING   THE  EGYPTIAN    TIGER. 

but  I  supposed  that  an  Arab  ought  not  to  know  how  to  deceive 
a  New-Yorker. 

To  my  surprise  I  found  that  my  calculations  were  wrong,  and 
my  piastre  went  into  the  pocket  of  the  card  thrower.  Then  I 
tried  to  get  back  the  money  I  had  lost — just  as  many  another 
has  tried  to  do — and  my  stake  went  the  same  way.  I  kept  on  a 
piastre  or  half  a  piastre  at  a  time,  watching  the  fellow  closely, 
and  thinking  I  ought  to  be  equal  to  him  in  shrewdness.  I  must 
have  tried  as  many  as  twenty  times,  losing  altogether  about  a  franc, 
and  not  once  did  I  win. 

I  gave  it  up  at  last,  and  by  this  time  the  Professor  came  up 
and  concluded  to  try  his  hand.  He  fared  no  better  than  I  did, 
but  kept  on  until  he  lost  twice  as  much  as  I.  We  gave  the  fel- 
low half  a  franc  "  backsheesh"  for  his  skill,  and  credited  him  with 
being  fitted  for  his  business.  If  he  lives  and  can  find  plenty  of 
patrons,  he  will  get  rich  in  the  course  of  time. 

Most  of  the  games  of  the  Egyptians  are  of  kinds  which  suit 
their  sedate  dispositions.  Games  partly  or  wholly  hazardous  are 
very  comimon  among  all  ranks  of  this  people.  The  game  of  cards 
is  almost  always  played  for  money  or  for  some  other  stake,  and  is 
called  by  way  of  distinction  "  the  game  of  hazard."  Persons  of 
the  lower  orders  in  the  towns  of  Egypt  are  often  seen  playing  at 
this  and  other  games  at  the  coffee  shops ;  but  frequently  for  no 
greater  stake  than  that  of  a  cup  of  coffee.  Many  of  them  play 
chess,  draughts,  and  backgammon.  Their  chess  men  are  of  sim- 
ple forms,  as  they  are  forbidden  by  their  religion  to  make  an  im- 
age of  anything  that  has  life. 

Siout  is  famous  for  the  manufacture  of  pipe-bowls,  coffee  cups, 
and  other  things  out  of  a  fine  clay  that  abounds  in  the  neighbor- 
hood, and  most  of  our  passengers  supplied  themselves  in  the  ba- 
zaars. We  had  to  bargain  a  great  deal  to  save  ourselves  from 
being  swindled,  and  even  then  we  paid  some  pretty  high  prices. 
Another  article  they  offered  us,  was  fans  of  ostrich  feathers,  and 
their  prices  were  about  half  what  the  same  things  would  bring  in 
Cairo.  There  are  some  manufactories  of  cotton  goods  at  Siout, 
but  the  most  of  the  articles  sold  in  the  bazaars  come  from  other 
places. 

At  Siout  we  met  the  boat  that  ascended  the  Nile  two  weeks 


ALMOST    A    DUEL.  561 

ahead  of  us,  and  was  now  on  its  return.  We  were  regaled  with 
stories  of  quarrels,  and  it  seemed  that  almost  from  the  day  of 
starting  there  had  been  a  row  of  some  kind  on  board.  The  dis- 
turbance had  not  quite  reached  the  point  of  pistols  and  coffee, 
but  was  very  near  it,  and  one  of  the  passengers  told  me  he  ex- 
pected to  fight  a  duel  before  reaching  Cairo.  One  of  the  misfor- 
tunes of  these  vexed  parties  is  the  liability  to  quarrel;  persons 
are  thrown  so  closely  together,  that  there  must  be  a  great  deal 
of  forbearance  and  concession  on  the  part  of  everybody  to  avoid 
trouble. 

The  river  above  and  below  Siout  winds  considerably,  and  some- 
times the  daJiabeeahs  are  greatly  retarded,  going  around  the 
bends.  Nature  has  very  well  arranged  the  navigation  of  the 
Nile.  The  general  course  of  the  stream  is  nearly  due  North  ; 
during  the  winter  the  wind  blows  almost  steadily  from  the  North, 
so  that  you  can  be  quite  sure  of  reaching  your  destination  with- 
out great  delay.  You  can  sail  up  stream  with  the  wind,  and  in 
going  down  the  boat  floats  and  is  rowed  just  enough  to  give  her 
steerage  way. 

When  an  ascending  boat  is  becalmed,  the  crew  is  sent  on  shore 
with  a  tow  rope,  to  which  they  are  harnessed  like  so  many  oxen. 
They  can  make  twelve  or  fifteen  miles  a  day  by  this  sort  of  work, 
and  we  frequently  saw  them  engaged  at  it. 

The  first  of  the  temples  of  ancient  Egypt  as  we  ascend  the 
river,  is  the  one  known  as  that  of  Sethe  I,  and  called  also  the 
temple  of  Abydos.  All  along  the  river  above  Siout,  there  are 
the  remains  of  temples  and  traces  of  ruined  cities,  and  every  year 
fresh  discoveries  are  made,  which  throw  light  upon  the  history 
of  the  country. 

We  landed  at  Girgeh — named  after  St.  George  of  Dragon  no- 
toriety— to  make  a  visit  to  Abydos.  Girgeh  was  once  at  quite  a 
distance  inland,  but  the  river  has  worn  away  the  soil,  so  that  the 
town  has  been  reached  by  the  stream,  and  a  portion  of  it  has 
fallen  in.  It  was  once  an  important  place,  but  is  now  of  little 
consequence,  and  the  inhabitants  were  not  particularly  pleasing 
in  appearance.  They  flocked  to  the  bank  with  various  things  to 
sell,  and  the  Professor  was  in  his  element,  as  he  found  a  good 
supply  of  old  coins. 


562  A    PERSISTENT    BEGGAR. 

One  man  had  a  scorpion  which  he  wished  to  sell,  and  after  he 
had  hung  around  me  for  some  time,  I  offered  him  a  piastre  if  he 
would  eat  the  venomous  insect.  He  indignantly  refused,  much 
to  the  amusement  of  the  rest  of  the  crowd. 

It  was  about  breakfast  time  when  we  arrived,  and  as  the  don- 
keys had  been  telegraphed  for,  they  were  already  waiting  for  us. 
We  started  soon  after  breakfast,  as  we  had  a  ride  of  three  hours 
before  us,  and  it  was  necessary  to  get  to  Abydos  before  the  sun 
was  at  meridian. 

The  road  lay  through  fields  of  peas  in  blossom,  through  other 
fields  of  beans,  and  others  of  sugar  cane  and  doura  stalks.  Every- 
where the  verdure  wa^s  thick  and  luxuriant,  and  remember  that 
we  were  in  the  month  of  January. 

We  passed  several  villages  and  saw  many  groups  of  natives  at 
work  in  the  fields,  and  here  and  there  we  saw  camels  and  buffa- 
loes tied  to  stakes,  and  feeding  upon  the  rich  grass.  An  animal 
is  tied  where  he  can  have  a  range  of  forty  or  fifty  feet,  and  he  is 
not  moved  unt.l  he  has  eaten  the  herbage  down  to  the  roots,  so 
that  there  shall  be  no  waste.    . 

The  villages  consisted  of  little  groups  of  mud  houses,  that  pos- 
sessed no  attractions,  and  when  one  sees  the  dirt  and  general 
wretchedness  about  them,  the  surprise  is  that  the  inhabitants  do 
not  die  before  reaching  a  dozen  years  of  age. 

The  villages  are  built  on  mounds  to  keep  them  out  of  the  way 
of  the  inundation  which  covers  all  the  fiat  country  and  makes  it 
difficult  to  move  about. 

I  had  on  this  ride  a  donkey  bo;,-,  who  was  the  most  persistent 
beggar  that  I  ever  encountered  in  all  the  course  of  my  life. 

When  I  started  on  a  ride  in  Egypt,  I  made  it  a  rule  to  inform 
the  driver  that  I  would  give  him  a  present  when  the  journey  was 
concluded,  and  this  promise  was  generally  satisfactory.  If  he 
asked  for  it  at  the  start,  I  informed  him  that  he  would  not  get  it 
till  we  were  through  with  each  other,  and  it  was  rare  indeed  that 
this  statement  did  not  quiet  him. 

The  boy  that  drove  my  donkey  from  Girgeh  began  his  appeal 
as  soon  as  I  mounted,  and  I  thought  to  quiet  him  with  the  usual 
promise.  He  was  silent  for  five  minutes  or  so,  and  then  he  broke 
out  with  the  same  appeal ;  I  repeated  my  promise,  and  scolded  him 


THE    KING    OF    BEGGARS. 


563 


him  into  silence ;  ten  minutes  later  he  broke  out  again,  and  this 
time  I  threatened  to  thrash  him. 

Next  I  did  thrash  him,  and  that  insured  peace  for  awhile ; 
then  I  was  bothered  again,  and  thrashed  him  again,  so  that  I  had 
some  pretty  fair  exercise  for  my  arms.  He  was  not  a  large  boy, 
so  that  I  was  entirely  safe  in  thrashing  him,  and  every  time  he 
renewed  his  begging,  I  gave  him  a  cut  with  the  whip. 

We  kept  up  this  fun  all  the  way  to  the  temple,  and  after  I  had 
dismounted,  he  followed  me  with  a  further  appeal,  and  indicated 
that  he  specially  wanted  to  buy  something  to  eat.  I  gave  him 
some  coppers,  and  when  the 
lunch  was  spread  I  gave  him 
a  part  of  mine,  in  the  hope 
of  silencing  him.  But  it 
was  no  use  ;  the  instant  we 
started  back  to  the  river,  he 
began  again  to  beg,  and  I 
thrashed  him  as  usual.  Half- 
way back  he  began  to  breathe 
short,  his  tongue  protruded, 
and  he  lay  down  on  the 
grass.  Thinking  something 
was  the  matter  with  him,  I 
dismounted  and  felt  his 
pulse,  which  seemed  to  be 
all  right. 

"Aoz,  eh  ?"  I  asked  ("  what  is  the  matter  with  you  .?"). 

"  Backsheesh,"  was  the  faint  response,  and  he  held  out  his 
hand  to  receive  the  cure. 

I  mounted  and  rode  off,  and  he  was  up  and  after  me  without 
any  sign  of  illness. 

After  that  he  did  not  try  the  sick  dodge  again,  but  he  kept  on 
begging  all  the  way  to  the  boat ;  and  when  I  had  given  him  a 
liberal  gratuity,  he  asked  for  more. 

If  the  beggars  of  the  whole  globe  ever  want  to  choose  a  king, 
I  recommend  them  to  hunt  out  this  youth  at  Girgeh,  and  offer 
the  crown  to  him,  for  he  certainly  deserves  it. 

The  temple  stands  on  the  edge  of  the  desert,  quite  near  some 
Z2 


"AOZ,    EH.^" 


564  A    WONDROUS    TEMPLE. 

palm  trees,  and  in  the  midst  of  heaps  of  ruins.  It  was  almost 
completely  buried  in  the  sand  until  a  few  years  ago,  when  it  was 
cleared  out  by  M.  Mariette,  and  the  sculptures  it  contains  were 
brought  to  light. 

To  the  ordinary  visitor,  the  attractive  features  of  this  temple 
are  its  massive  proportions,  the  solidity  of  its  structure,  the  care 
shown  in  all  the  details,  and  not  least  of  all,  the  vast  quantity  of 
sculptured  scenes  and  hieroglyphic  records  that  abound  every- 
where. But  the  historian  of  Egypt  fixes  his  eye  on  the  eastern 
wall  of  a  narrow  passage  way,  leading  from  the  second  hall  to  one 
of  the  smaller  chambers. 

Here  King  Sethi,  and  Rameses,  his  son,  are  represented  mak- 
ing offerings  to  seventy-six  kings  who  have  preceded  them,  the 
name  of  Sethi  being  the  last  of  the  list.  The  names  are  there, 
and  apparently  in  chronological  order.  This  is  the  famous  tablet 
of  Abydos,  which  has  made  so  much  sensation  among  the  stu- 
dents of  the  history  of  Ancient  Egypt,  as  it  has  enabled  them 
to  make  up  the  list  of  the  kings  from  Menes,  founder  of  the 
First  Dynasty,  down  to  Sethi,  the  second  king  of  the  XlXth 
Dynasty. 

Its  discovery  in  1865  has  removed  much  of  the  mystery  sur- 
rounding the  old  empire,  and  surpasses  in  importance  any  single 
discovery  that  has  been  made.  The  tablet  of  Thebes,  now  in  the 
British  Museum,  is  of  far  less  consequence  than  this. 

There  is  another  temple  not  far  from  this,  but  in  a  much  more 
ruined  state.  It  was  evidently  of  great  beauty  at  the  time  of  its 
construction,  as  the  walls  were  lined  throughout  with  alabaster, 
and  covered  with  sculptures  richly  painted  with  colors  that  still 
remain. 

All  around  there  are  tombs  and  heaps  of  rubbish,  marking  the 
site  of  the  city  and  of  its  necropolis  ;  and  whenever  the  excava- 
tions are  renewed  on  an  extensive  scale,  we  shall  doubtless  hear 
of  some  important  discoveries. 

We  returned  to  the  river  at  Bellianeh,  the  boat  having  moved 
on  around  the  bend  during  our  absence.  It  was  late  In  the  after- 
noon when  we  came  there,  and  we  were  ready  for  dinner.  Lunch 
had  been  taken  among  the  ruins  of  the  temple.  While  picking 
the  leg  of  a  chicken,  and  washing  it  down  with  the  water  of  the 


FUN    WITH    THE    NATIVES.  565 

Nile,  I  sat  with  my  back  against  a  column  whereon  was  sculp- 
tured the  figure  of  a  king  offering  a  tribute  to  one  of  the  divini- 
ties of  his  time.  He  had  had  no  chicken  or  anything  else  for 
many  hundred  years,  but  he  stood  there  perfectly  composed,  and 
never  once  hinted  that  I  ought  to  divide  with  him.  He  was  a 
patient  old  oyster,  and  I  wanted  to  shake  hands  with  him  at 
parting,  but  couldn't  find  his  flipper. 

One  of  our  favorite  amusements  at  each  landing-place  was  to 
make  the  natives  scramble  for  money.  They  came  down  in  large 
numbers,  sometimes  two  or  three  hundred  of  them,  and  kept  up 
a  continual  howl  of  "  Backsheesh,  O,  Howadji ! "  that  sounded 
very  much  like  the  murmurs  of  a  mob.  They  gathered  on  the 
bank  opposite  the  stern  of  the  boat,  and  were  ready  to  catch  all 
the  money  we  would  throw  to  them.  We  had  a  supply  of  cop- 
per for  just  such  cases,  and  by  a  judicious  use  of  it,  we  made 
a  franc  go  a  great  ways,  and  this  was  the  way  we  would  dis- 
tribute it. 

One  of  us  would  take  a  copper,  and  after  balancing  and  aiming 
it  several  times,  would  give  it  a  toss.  A  mass  of  hands  would  be 
stretched  to  receiv^e  it,  and  the  crowd  would  sway  in  the  direc- 
tion of  the  falling  coin.  If  it  struck  in  the  dirt,  a  dozen  Arabs 
would  spring  upon  the  place  where  it  fell,  and  there  would  be  a 
scramble  for  it.  Sometimes  the  struggle  would  be  so  fierce,  that 
the  cloud  of  dust  raised  thereby  would  completely  conceal  the 
combatants,  and  they  would  emerge  with  torn  garments. 

Our  best  fun  was  in  tossing  the  money  so  that  it  would  fall 
just  at  the  river's  edge  ;  the  rear  of  the  crowd  would  sway  for- 
ward to  seize  it,  and  their  swaying  and  surging  would  press  the 
front  rank  into  the  water,  so  that  in  a  little  while  we  would  have 
half  the  crowd  dripping  from  an  involuntary  bath.  The  small 
boys  were  generally  on  the  lookout  foi;  this,  and  removed  their 
clothes  at  an  early  part  of  the  performance,  so  that  we  had  them 
in  ptiris  naturalibus.  The  men  and  girls  were  generally  more 
modest,  but  not  always  so. 

Usually  we  had  half  an  hour's  sport  before  the  departure  of 
the  steamer  from  a  village,  and  sometimes  the  entire  population, 
with  the  exception  of  a  few  dignified  elders,  joined  in  the  scram- 
ble.    At  Bellianeh,   the  heads  of  the  village  thought  the  affair 


566 


LUDICROUS    SCENES. 


undignified,  and  determined  to  put  a  stop  to  it.  Two  of  them 
appeared  on  the  scene,  armed  with  cotirbashes — whips  made  from 
hippopotamus  hide — and  caused  a  very  Hvely  scattering. 

The  boys  were  whipped  into  their  clothes,  and  public  decency 
was  thereby  protected,  but  only  for  a  short  time.  The  boat  was 
to  lie  there  half  an  hour  longer,  and  we  wanted  the  fun  to  con- 
tinue. So  we  sent  one  of  the  waiters  to  convey  our  compliments 
to  the  city  fathers,  and  ask  them  to  go  home,  and  to  emphasize 
the  request  with  an  offer  of  "  backsheesh." 

They  saw  the  point  at  once,  each  accepted  a  franc,  and  sud- 
denly remembered  that 
he  had  business  else- 
where. In  two  minutes 
they  had  disappeared  up 
a  street,  and  we  had  the 
yelling  crowd  once  more 
in  front  of  us  and  once 
more  naked.  Evidently 
bribery  is  cheap  at  Bel- 
lianeh. 

Just  back  of  the  land- 
ing-place was  a  heap  of 
loose  dust,  like  a  small 
mountain.  It  was  not 
less  than  forty  feet  from 

"DUSTING"  FOR   "BACKSHEESH."  ^^p   ^^    bottOm,     and    thc 

sides  were  at  an  angle  of  about  fifty  degrees.  To  project  a 
copper  into  this  heap  was  the  height  of  our  ambition,  and  there 
were  only  two  men  on  the  boat  who  could  do  it.  When  a 
coin  was  fairly  landed  there  the  rush  was  interesting.  There 
was  a  lot  of  Arabs  at  the  foot  of  the  heap,  and  another  at  the 
top.  Those  below  scrambled  up,  and  those  above  scrambled 
down,  and  the  cloud  they  created  was  something  fearful  ;  but 
luckily  the  wind  blew  it  away  from  us.  Sometimes  they  rolled 
in  a  tangled  mass  of  arms  and  legs  from  top  to  bottom,  and  the 
youngsters  who  had  just  emerged  all  wet  from  the  river  were 
speedily  veneered  with  the  adhering  dust.  It  may  have  been  the 
ruins  of  an  ancient  city  that  they  rolled  in,  and  not  impossibly 


DRESS  OF  THE  YOUNG  ARABS.  56/ 

the  ashes  of  a  king  may  have  stuck  to  the  body  of  one  of  these 
begging  natives.  Little  they  cared  for  that ;  they  have  no  more 
respect  for  the  old  kings  than  we  have  for  the  beggars  them- 
selves. 

The  process  of  disrobing  was  not  an  elaborate  one.  A  boy 
would  peel  himself  in  about  ten  seconds,  as  he  had  only  a  single 
garment,  a  sort  of  long  shirt,  to  remove.  This  shirt  is  almost 
invariably  made  of  blue  cotton,  like  the  material  which  we  call 
"  denims  "  in  America,  and  such  as  the  hod-carrying  Celt  and 
other  laboring  men  generally  use  for  overalls. 

All  the  boys  appeared  to  know  how  to  swim,  and  they  had  no 
hesitation  at  rushing  into  the  river.  We  had  swimming  matches 
among  them,  by  attaching  coppers  to  doura  stalks  and  throwing 
them  out  into  the  stream,  where  they  were  instantly  pursued  and 
overtaken. 

One  of  the  passengers  heated  a  piastre  at  the  cook's  galley, 
and  then  threw  it  out ;  the  boy  who  took  it  immediately  dropped 
it,  and  it  was  seized  by  another  and  larger  boy,  who  dropped  it 
in  turn.  It  didn't  burn  them,  but  was  just  warm  enough  to  feel 
uncomfortable. 


--NJ7 


CHAPTER      XLV. 

THE  DANCING  GIRLS  OF  KENEH.— THE  TREASURES  OF 
DENDERAH. 

The  Dates  and  Dancing  Girls  of  Keneh — The  Almeh  and  the  Ghawazee — The 
Dalilahs  of  Cairo — Going  to  the  Dance-Hall — An  Outlandish  Orchestra — The 
Drapery  of  the  Dancers — The  Cairo  Wriggle — Curious  Posturing — A  Weird 
Scene — Dress  and  Undress — Miracles  of  Motion — A  Fete  at  the  German  Consulate 
— Models  for  Painters  and  Sculptors — Arab  and  Nubian  Nymphs — The  Temple  of 
Denderah — History  Hewn  in  Stone — Cleopatra  and  her  Portrait — The  Fatal  Asp — 
A  Bit  of  Doggerel— The  Coins  of  Old  Egypt — The  Professor's  Bargain— Digging 
for  Treasure — Arrival  at  Luxor — Taking  in  Strangers. 


THE  first  place  of  importance  above  Bellianah  is  Keneh, 
which  stands  about  three  miles  inland  from  the  river,  and 
occupies  a  pretty  situation.  It  is  celebrated  for  its  dates  and 
dancing  girls  ;  we  bought  some  of  the  former,  and  were  invited 
to  attend  a  performance  of  the  latter  at  the  house  of  the  English 
Consul. 

We  declined  the  invitation,  for  the  reason  that  we  had  sent  the 
dragoman  to  arrange  a  dance  at  the  residence  of  the  fair  maidens 
and  did  not  wish  to  impose  upon  the  representative  of  Her 
Britannic  or  any  other  Majesty. 

The  dates  were  excellent,  the  best,  in  fact,  I  have  ever  tasted  ; 
they  are  packed  in  drums  like  figs,  but  are  not  pressed  down  into 
a  solid  mass  like  the  dates  we  get  in  America.  They  are  very 
sweet  and  soft,  and  each  one  of  us  laid  in  half  a  dozen  boxes  for 
his  own  use. 

As  for  the  dancing  girls,  a  word  in  your  ear. 

(568) 


THE  DANCING  GIRLS  OF  UPPER  EGYPT. 


569 


Their  Arabic  name  is  gJtawazee  ;  they  are  sometimes  improp- 
erly called  AlmeJis,  and  there  is  a  French  painting  of  consider- 
able celebrity  which  represents  the  ^/w^/^  dancing  before  a  party 
of  men. 

The  Almeh  is  a  professional  singer,  and  dancing  is  neither  her 
profession  nor  practice  ;  the  ghaivazee  dance,  but  do  not  sing. 


AN    EGYl'TIAN    GHAWAZEE. 


These  ladies  are  not  of  the  vestal  sort,  but,  on  the  contrary,  quite 
the  reverse.  They  were  known  in  Egypt  in  ancient  times,  and 
one  can  see  pictures  of  them  on  the  walls  of  some  of  the  tombs 
in  the  valley  of  the  Nile.  In  modern  times  they  became  so 
numerous  at  Cairo  that  Mohammed  Ali  banished  them  from  that 


570  AN    EGYPTIAN    ORCHESTRA. 

city  and  sent  whole  boat-loads  of  them  to  Keneh,  Esneh,  and 
other  towns  of  upper  Egypt.  Those  that  he  banished  are  not 
now  on  the  stage  of  life,  but  their  descendants  or  imitators  are 
numerous,  and  have  lent  a  sort  of  infamous  fame  to  the  places 
they  inhabit. 

The  dragoman  had  arranged  the  whole  affair,  and  early  in  the 
evening  we  left  the  landing-place  and  travelled  the  somewhat 
rough  road  to  Keneh.  There  were  fourteen  of  us,  and  there 
were  six  nationalities  represented  in  the  auditory,  or  rather  vidi- 
tory,  as  we  had  come  to  see  rather  than  to  hear. 

Under  the  guidance  of  the  dragoman  we  went  to  an  obscure 
house  in  a  narrow  street,  and  were  shown  up  a  flight  of  somewhat 
rickety  stairs,  and  into  a  room  that  was  anything  but  palatial. 

There  were  divans  on  three  sides  of  the  room,  and  on  these 
we  were  seated  ;  the  dancers  and  the  musicians  occupied  the  floor 
in  the  centre,  and  as  soon  as  we  were  seated,  the  performance 
began.  The  music  consisted  of  a  couple  of  drums,  shaped  like 
a  squash,  with  the  large  end  cut  off  and  covered  with  a  piece  of 
drum-leather,  and  of  a  sort  of  violin  or  guitar,  and  a  kind  of  reed 
flute.  There  was  also  a  tambourine,  but  it  had  less  prominence 
than  the  drums,  which  were  the  real  pieces  de  resistance.  The 
drums  were  beaten  with  the  fingers  in  rather  a  slow  measure  ; 
the  music  was  of  a  melancholy,  barbaric  character,  and  consisted 
mainly  of  time  without  much  melody.  Some  of  the  musi- 
cians were  men,  I  think  only  two  of  them,  but  as  they  were 
all  squatted  on  the  floor,  and  there  was  a  general  similarity  of 
dress,  it  was  hard  to  distinguish  the  sexes. 

The  dancing  girls  wore  white  dresses  that  flowed  down  to  the 
heels  and  were  very  short  in  the  waist  On  the  upper  part  of 
the  body  is  a  jacket,  cut  very  short,  and  frequently  separated  an 
inch  or  two  from  the  dress  below  it.  The  jacket  is  sometimes 
richly  embroidered,  and  I  saw  several  dresses  that  were  rather 
regal  in  appearance. 

The  head-dress  consists  of  the  natural  hair  braided  in  ringlets, 
and  where  this  is  small  in  quantity  it  is  supplemented  with  store 
hair,  as  our  own  belles  supplement  theirs.  In  either  case  there 
is  a  liberal  decoration  of  small  coins  and  pendants  braided  into 
the  hair  or  attached  to  it,  and  the  display  of  jewelry  is  generally 
quite  profuse. 


RISE    OF    THE    CURTAIN. 


571 


The  musicians  struck  up,  and  the  girls — six  in  number — took 
their  positions  in  a  circle.  At  the  sound  of  the  music  they  began 
to  move  about  the  room  with  a  sort  of  gliding  motion,  accom- 
panied by  a  curious  wriggle  of  the  body  at  the  hips,  while  all  the 
rest  of  it  remained  still.  It  was  a  motion  from  side  to  side 
performed  quite  rapidly,  and  with  due  deference  to  the  sound  of 


GHAVVAZEE   AND    MUSICIANS. 


the  drums  which  were  all  the  time  kept  in  operation,  and  was 
quite  unlike  anything  in  the  ballet  as  seen  in  Europe  or  America. 
There  was  none  of  the  dancing  of  the  kind  for  which  Fanny 
Ellsler  and  Taglioni  are  famous,  and  from  an  occidental  point 
of  view  it  was  rather  disappointing  as  a  dance.  But  the  strange- 
ness of  the  scene,  in  many  of  its  features,  made  up  for  the 
absence  of  saltatorial  activity.     Certainly  the  dance  was  a  new 


5/2  THE  BALLET  TROUPE  OF  KENEH. 

one  to  US,  and  the  dancers  were  of  a  type  unknown  in  America. 
Their  dress  was  strange,  and  stranger  still  were  the  musicians 
squatted  on  the  floor  and  keeping  time  with  that  monotonous 
barbaric  sound. 

Two  or  three  Arabs  were  peering  in  at  the  door,  the  room  was 
wholly  Arabic  in  character,  and  the  only  occidental  suggestion 
was  the  party  of  spectators  squatting  or  sitting  on  the  divans. 
There  was  a  dim  light  from  half  a  dozen  candles,  and  outside  a 
small  fire  occasionally  sent  up  a  weird  flash.  The  scene  was  a 
fine  one  for  an  artist. 

For  a  quarter  of  an  hour  the  dance  went  on,  and  gradually  the 
movements  became  more  and  more  excited.  Then  there  was 
a  pause  and  then  a  re-commencement,  and  then  another  pause 
at  which  the  ladies  retired  for  a  few  moments  while  we  took  a 
fresh  filling  to  our  pipes  or  lighted  fresh  cigars.  When  the 
dancing  girls  returned  they  were  in  a  much  lighter  costume  than 
the  preceding  one,  a  costume  that  permitted  one  to  see  the  full 
development  of  the  form,  as  it  did  away  entirely  with  the  long 
dress  and  with  other  garments  that  hindered  the  movements.  I 
doubt  if  the  manager  of  any  theatre  ever  dared  to  go  quite  as 
far  in  dressing  or  undressing  his  ballet  troupe  as  did  the  manager 
of  the  Ghawazee  at  Keneh.  With  the  exception  of  their  head 
dresses  of  false  hair  and  jingling  coins,  and  their  necklaces  and 
rings,  the  whole  half  dozen  of  girls  didn't  have  clothes  enough 
about  them  to  fill  a  snuff  box.  You  could  have  sent  their  entire 
lot  of  garments  by  mail  with  a  single  postage  stamp. 

Immediately  on  their  re-appearance  the  music  re-commenced, 
and  this  time  with  a  more  vigorous  measure,  so  that  the  scene 
became  enlivening. 

This  time  the  movements  of  the  dancers  were  more  free,  and 
they  whirled  about  in  a  narrow  space  with  such  rapidity  that 
there  was  quite  a  maze  of  the  performers.  There  was  a  repeti- 
tion of  the  gliding,  whirling,  and  twisting  motions  combined,  and 
sometimes  they  were  all  performed  together.  We  looked  on 
attentively  for  half  an  hour,  and  now  and  then  as  the  air  was 
getting  stifling  from  the  occupancy  of  a  small  room  by  so  many 
persons  we  called  for  an  adjournment  and  went  out  into  the  light 
of  the  moon. 


A  PERFORMANCE  AT  THE  GERMAN  CONSULATE.      573 

.  As  we  passed  by  the  German  consulate  we  heard  the  sound  of 
music,  and  one  of  the  Germans  of  our  party  led  the  way  inside- 
The  consuls  of  France  and  Germany  arc  brothers  and  their  con- 
sulates are  in  one  building ;  during  the  Franco-German  war  the 
consul  for  Germany  was  also  consul  for  France,  and  is  supposed 
to  have  performed  his  duty  impartially,  especially  as  there  is 
very  little  duty  for  him  to  perform. 

The  place  into  which  we  were  ushered  was  a  large  hall,  and 
the  same  sort  of  dance  given  in  honor  of  some  German  visitors 
was  going  on.  The  girls  were  more  richly  dressed  than  at  the 
performance  we  had  just  witnessed,  and  the  room  being  much 
larger  they  had  more  space  for  their  movements.  The  musicians 
were  more  numerous,  and  as  there  was  a  better  light  in  the  room 
the  scene  was  brighter.  But  the  spectators  wefe  sitting  on 
chairs  instead  of  divans  and  the  host  was  dressed  a  la  European, 
with  the  exception  of  the  everlasting  fez  which  covered  his  head. 

Altogether  the  scene  was  much  less  Oriental,  and  it  lacked 
the  careless  abandon  that  had  made  one  of  the  attractions  of  the 
dance  at  the  home  of  the  Ghazva::ce.  So  after  a  short  stay  we 
thanked  our  host,  the  Consul,  and  returned  to  the  boat. 

Many  travellers  have  praised  the  beauty  of  the  dancing  girls, 
and  several  artists  of  note,  among  the  Germans,  have  visited 
Egypt  to  paint  them.  I  had  formed  such  a  picture  of  their 
beauty  that  I  was  rather  disappointed  at  the  reality.  Of  the  six 
that  danced  before  us  two  were  positively  ill-looking,  and  two 
others,  though  not  uncomely  in  features,  had  grown  rather  too 
fat  to  be  attractive.  The  other  two  were  pretty  and  well  formed, 
and  had  the  others  been  like  them,  or  had  we  seen  only  these 
two  we  might  have  shared  the  feelings  of  many  who  have  gone 
before  us. 

Of  the  two  beauties  one  was  a  pure  blooded  Arab,  and  the 
other  evidently  of  mixed  blood  Arab  with  a  streak,  and  a 
broad  streak  too,  of  Nubian.  Their  forms  were  exquisite  and 
would  have  filled  the  eye  of  the  sculptor  of  the  Greek  Slave. 
Their  limbs  were  full  and  rounded,  and  every  muscle  so  far  as 
we  could  see  was  of  the  proper  development.  Their  eyes  were 
full  and  liquid  in  their  tenderness,  and  the  long  lashes  set  them 
out  like  a  lustrous  frame.     The  dark  skin  was  smooth  and  appa- 


574 


HOW    THE    DANCING    GIRLS    LOOK. 


rently  soft  as  velvet,  and  had  a  freshness  that  not  all  the  paint 
and  powder  of  the  French  toilet  can  imitate.  A  pleasant  smile 
played  constantly  around  the  mouth  and  eyes  and  seemed  to  run 
from  the  one  to  the  other,  the  luxuriant  hair  decked  with  golden 
ornaments  fell  in  copious  folds  around  the  plump  and  well-formed 


AN    EGYPTIAN    MUSICIAN. 


necks  and  was  flung  from  side  to  side  in  a  shower  of  ebony  spray 
as  its  wearers  glided  and  swung  around  the  apartment,  where  we 
looked  upon  them.  Fortunate  indeed  had  we  been  had  these 
been  the  only  dancing  girls  to  meet  our  eyes  at  Keneh. 

Everywhere  through  Egypt  water  is  filtered  in  large  jars,  some 
of  them  holding  nearly  a  barrel,  and  it  is  carried  on  the  heads  of 


THE  TEMPLE  OF  DENDERAH.  57/ 

women  in  lesser  jars  that  contain  from  four  to  six  gallons.  It  is 
brought  to  the  table  in  bottles  holding  a  quart  or  more,  and  when- 
ever and  wherever  you  call  for  water  it  is  served  in  these  bottles 
and  never  in  a  pitcher. 

The  filtering  jars  and  the  drinking  bottles  come  from  Keneh, 
or  rather  the  most  of  them  do,  and  the  large  jars  come  from 
Ballas,  a  town  a  few  miles  above.  They  are  made  of  a  peculiar 
clay  which  is  mixed  with  the  ashes  of  Haifa  grass  and  turned  on 
an  ordinary  potter's  wheel.  They  are  dried  in  the  sun,  and  when 
complete  require  a  little  soaking  to  remove  the  taste  of  the 
earth.  They  are  very  porous,  water  passes  easily  through  them, 
and  when  placed  in  the  open  air  the  transformation  and  con- 
stant evaporation  that  follows  keep  the  contents  very  cool. 

We  met  many  rafts  of  these  ballasee  on  their  way  down  the 
river,  and  some  large  ones  were  tied  to  the  bank  at  Keneh.  The 
men  in  charge  of  the  rafts  are  obliged  to  remove  the  water  from 
the  half  immersed  jars  every  few  hours  to  prevent  their  absorp- 
tion of  enough  to  sink  them.  The  same  kind  of  drinking  bot- 
tle can  be  found  in  Spain  and  in  Mexico,  and  also  in  some  of  the 
South  American  countries.  They  are  used  all  through  Egypt, 
and  their  manufacture  employs  a  considerable  number  of  per- 
sons. The  man  who  introduces  them  in  the  Mississippi  valley 
will  confer  a  boon  upon  the  inhabitants  of  that  region. 

An  hour's  ride  from  the  river  on  the  side  opposite  Keneh  is 
the  temple  of  Denderah. 

Compared  with  the  other  temples  of  Egypt,  this  one  is  mod- 
ern as  it  was  built  less  than  two  thousand  years  ago,  at  the  time 
the  Romans  held  possession  of  the  country.  Egyptian  sculpture 
had  long  been  on  the  decline  and  the  figures  are  far  less  graceful 
than  those  of  a  much  older  period,  but  the  architecture  retained 
its  grandeur,  and  one  cannot  admire  too  much  the  magnificent 
proportions  of  the  halls  and  columns  of  Denderah,  especially  in 
the  grand  portico  and  in  some  of  the  inner  apartments. 

The  temple  is  the  best  preserved  that  has  yet  been  discovered; 
its  walls  and  columns  are  all  in  place  and  the  roof  is  almost  en- 
tire, so  that  it  presents  the  best  specimen  of  a  complete  temple. 
It  contains  a  zodiac  which  was  the  subject  of  much  controversy 
on  account  of  its  supposed  antiquity,  but  a  careful  reading  of 


578  CLEOPATRA    AND    HER    PORTRAIT. 

some  of  the  surrounding  inscriptions  has  exploded  the  theory 
that  the  ancient  Egyptians  were  the  authors  of  the  zodiac. 

On  the  side  wall  of  the  temple  is  a  portrait  of  Cleopatra,  which 
is  interesting  for  the  reason  that  it  is  cotemporaneous  with  the 
existence  of  that  estimable  but  warm  blooded  lady,  whose  habits 
were  not  such  as  to  make  her  a  model  for  the  guidance  of  young 
women  of  the  present  day.  We  looked  at  the  portrait  for  the 
beauty  for  which  she  was  renowned  but  could  not  find  it  though 
we  all  admitted  that  her  face  was  not  unhandsome.  Her  figure 
does  not  possess  the  grace  of  her  Greek  portraits,  and  altogether 
the  picture  was  a  disappointment. 

On  several  places  on  the  walls  of  the  temple  there  are  sculp- 
tures representing  the  asp,  the  serpent  which  was  once  worship- 
ped as  a  divinity.  Asp-headed  gods  were  frequent  among  the 
Egyptian  sculptures,  and  their  worship  extended  over  a  long  pe- 
riod. And  it  was  by  one  of  these  serpents  that  Cleopatra,  of 
whom  we  have  just  been  speaking,  was  stung  to  death.  The 
event  is  recorded  in  a  pathetic  poem  which  begins  thus : 

"She  took  a  nasty,  pison  snake, 

And  hid  it  in  her  gown. 
It  gave  its  little  tail  a  shake 

And  did  its  job  up  brown. 
She  went  into  her  little  bed, 

In  dreadful  agony ; 
Then  tore  her  chignon  from  her  head, 

And  followed  Antony." 

Denderah  was  a  big  thing  for  the  Professor  as  he  was  able  to 
buy  there  an  abundance  of  coins.  He  bought  a  lot  of  them, 
about  a  quart  altogether,  for  a  couple  of  francs  ;  they  were  cov- 
ered with  rust,  mould,  and  verdigris,  but  they  were  coins  and  he 
paid  little  more  than  what  they  were  worth  as  old  copper.  He 
was  a  good  deal  of  a  coin-sharp  and  understood  their  value,  and 
when  he  looked  them  over  on  the  boat  he  was  so  happy  that  he 
wanted  to  go  back  again  to  buy  more.  He  said  he  wouldn't 
take  five  hundred,  no,  not  a  thousand  francs  for  the  lot,  and  he 
was  ready  to  dance  with  joy.  And  I  add  this  by  way  of  foot 
note,  that  when  we  retur»ed  to  Cairo  he  had  the  coins  cleaned 
and  examined  by  a  numismatist.  Every  coin  was  pronounced 
genuine  and  some  were  of  silver.     Most  of  them  were  of  a  kind 


A   COIN-SHARP.  581 

that  is  abundant  and  consequently  they  had  not  much  value,  but 
there  were  several  very  rare  specimens.  One  in  particular  was 
so  rare  that  only  one  like  it  was  known  to  exist  in  Egypt,  and  it 
was  worth  any  sum  of  money  that  a  seller  would  ask  and  a  buyer 
would  give. 

He  was  sure  they  were  genuine,  and  he  scouted  the  notion  that 
they  were  fabrications  for  the  reason  that  he  had  paid  less  than 
it  would  cost  to  fabricate  them.  These  coins  were  found  around 
Denderah,  and  we  saw  the  natives  digging  in  the  rubbish  in  sev- 
eral places  in  search  of  them.  Occasionally  a  native  makes  a 
good  find,  but  he  never  knows  its  value,  and  will  sell  his  prize 
cheaply.  A  coin  collector  who  knows  his  business  would  do 
well  to  make  the  voyage  of  the  Nile. 

We  had  half  a  day's  steaming  from  Keneh  to  Luxor,  and 
turned  some  pretty  bends  in  the  river  where  the  scenery  was 
quite  picturesque.  We  passed  several  daJiabeeaJis  on  their  way 
up  stream  and  greeted  them  with  our  steam  whistle  and  by  dip- 
ping our  flag  to  which  they  responded  by  dipping  theirs.  Every 
dahabeeah  carries  a  flag  showing  the  nationality  of  the  parties  on 
board  ;  this  is  an  inflexible  rule,  and  a  very  good  one,  and  often 
leads  to  friendly  acquaintance  among  persons  of  similar  nation- 
alties.  The  steamboat  saluted  every  daJiabeeahs ;  she  was  not 
proud  because  she  was  a  steamboat,  and  we  were  glad  to  perceive 
that  the  others  were  not  proud  because  they  were  dahabeeahs. 

In  this  part  of  the  river  we  observed  a  great  number  of  pig- 
eons flying  around ;  these  birds  abound  all  along  the  Nile  but  are 
specially  numerous  in  this  locality.  The  pigeon  houses  are  built 
over  the  dwellings  and  are  two  or  three  stories  high ;  they  have 
a  likeness  to  the  battlements  of  old  castles,  as  they  are  narrower 
at  top  than  at  bottom,  and  the  entrances  for  the  birds  have  a 
strong  resemblance  to  port  holes.  Branches  of  trees  are  put 
near  the  holes  to  assist  the  birds  in  alighting,  and  they  give 
rather  a  curious  appearance  to  the  houses.  Hundreds  of  these 
pigeons  can  be  seen  in  the  air  at  once,  and  sometimes  the  flocks 
are  very  large.  The  birds  are  kept  for  the  sake  of  their  manure; 
pigeon  dung  is  the  only  kind  of  manure  used  on  the  fields  in 
Egypt,  and  it  is  quite  an  article  of  commerce. 

In  Cairo  a  great  many  pigeons  are  kept  on  the  roofs  of  houses; 


582  BUYING    ANCIENT    RELICS. 

they  fly  around  and  pick  up  their  food  where  they  can  find  it, 
and  their  owners  make  a  very  fair  revenue  from  the  sale  of  the 
manure  as  well  as  from  that  of  the  birds.  Mohammedans  do  not 
eat  them  but  the  large  number  of  Christians  in  Egypt  ensures  a 
good  market.  The  hotels  have  them  very  often  in  their  bills  of 
fare; 

It  was  about  noon  when  we  reached  Luxor  and  tied  up  to  the 
bank  in  front  of  the  American  Consulate.  There  was  a  crowd 
of  donkey-boys,  guides,  and  miscellaneous  citizens  to  meet  us,  and 
as  soon  as  we  were  on  shore  they  surrounded  us  at  once. 

The  Professor  was  happy  as  he  found  plenty  of  old  coins,  but 
he  did  not  find  them  as  cheap  as  at  Denderah.  The  most  num- 
erous speculators  were  the  dealers  in  antiquities,  such  as  frag- 
ments of  mummies,  pieces  of  coffins,  scarabees,  and  bits  of  marble 
and  other  stones  cut  into  the  shape  of  ancient  statues. 

They  have  an  odd  way  of  offering  their  stuff  to  you ;  without 
saying  a  word  they  come  up  and  hold  out  the  thing  they  have  for 
sale,  and  sometimes  if  it  is  a  skull  they  hold  it  disagreeably  near 
to  your  face.  Ask  the  price  and  then  make  an  offer,  and  be  sure 
to  make  the  offer  small  enough.  They  refuse  and  turn  away  ; 
in  a  few  minutes  they  come  up  again  with  the  same  thing  and 
offer  it  in  the  same  manner  as  if  they  do  not  know  you  have  seen 
it  before  Refuse  and  refuse  again  ;  they  depart,  or  at  all  events 
put  their  things  in  their  pockets  at  each  refusal,  but  they  return 
again  in  a  few  minutes. 

There  was  one  man  with  a  string  of  scarabees  and  another  with 
a  miniature  bust  of  one  of  the  old  kings  that  I  think  offered  their 
wares  as  often  as  once  in  five  minutes  during  all  the  time  I 
was  accessible  to  them.  They  do  not  talk  under  such  circum- 
stances unless  you  talk  first ;  they  glide  silently  in  front  of  you, 
and  then  hold  up  what  they  have  to  sell,  as  though  endeavoring 
to  secure  your  admiration. 

The  articles  mostly  dealt  in  are  scarabee, — those  imitations  in 
hard  stone  of  the  Egyptian  beetle  that  are  found  in  many  of  the 
mummy  coffins.  Some  of  them  make  pretty  finger  rings,  and  I 
have  one  that  makes  a  capital  seal,  as  it  bears  the  signet  of  one 
of  the  kings  of  the  XlXth  Dynasty.  They  are  of  all  sizes,  from 
the  small  stones  placed  on  the  finger  of  a  mummy  or  strung  into 


EXTORTIONATE    ARABS.  583 

necklaces,  up  to  some  as  large  as  a  goose  egg,  and  even  much 
larger.  Some  of  these  large  ones  are  simply  marvellous.  They 
are  of  very  hard  stone, — porphyry,  feldspar,  basalt,  serpentine, 
carnelian,  and  the  like,  and  are  covered  on  the  under  side  with 
finely  cut  hieroglyphics,  generally  passages  from  the  Ritual  of 
the  Dead. 

There  is  one  in  the  museum  at  Cairo  that  I  would  walk  twenty- 
three  miles  to  own.  It  is  about  as  large  over  as  a  two-cent  piece, 
and  the  back  is  cut  as  neatly  as  that  of  the  beetle  it  imitated, 
while  the  under  side  is  covered  with  fine  hieroglyphics.  And 
the  stone  is  green  feldspar,  one  of  the  hardest  things  in  the 
world  for  cutting,  and  how  they  managed  to  finish  it  so  beauti- 
fully is  a  mystery. 

The  Arabs  at  Luxor  have  a  liberal  supply  of  these  scarabees  but 
they  are  nearly  all  modern  imitations.  They  have  some  genuine 
ones  for  which  they  ask  a  high  price,  but  it  sometimes  happens 
that  a  really  good  one  is  sold  for  a  trifle.  They  declare  that  every- 
thing they  have  is  "  antikd'  and  ask  proportionate  prices,  but  you 
are  not  expected  to  offer  anywhere  near  the  sum  demanded. 

When  a  man  exhibited  something  that  I  thought  I  would  buy, 
I  asked  his  price.  If  he  said  two  pounds,  I  might  offer  sixpence, 
and  very  often  they  would  come  down  to  one  or  two  shillings  for 
something  that  they  originally  asked  two  pounds  for.  I  bought  a 
scarabee  for  a  franc  that  was  offered  to  me  for  thirty  francs, 
and  one  of  my  friends  paid  two  francs  for  something  for  which 
one  hundred  and  fifty  francs  was  the  first  price. 

In  other  countries  an  article  is  supposed  to  be  worth  some- 
where near  the  price  put  upon  it,  but  any  such  rule  is  erroneous 
in  Egypt.  I  have  no  hesitation  in  offering  a  silver  piastre,  (five 
cents,)  for  a  scarabee  whose  holder  demands  two  pounds  ;  in  New 
York  or  London  a  similar  offer  would  be  an  insult,  but  in  Luxor 
it  is  not  so  regarded. 

A  great  many  people  are  foolish  enough  to  buy  these  antiqui- 
ties at  the  prices  demanded,  and  the  Arabs  in  this  business  are 
able  to  make  a  good  living.  They  are  reputed  to  make  many  of 
the  articles,  and  I  was  told  that  others  are  made  in  Cairo,  and 
others  in  Birmingham — like  the  famous  Waterloo  relics.  One 
fellow  was  pointed  otit  as  the  owner  of  a  fabriquc  d'  ajitiquitics 
33 


584 


A    MANUFACTURER    OF    ANTIQUITIES. 


and  we  asked  him  to  show  us  his  shop.  He  denied  having  any 
factory,  and  then  we  offered  him  five  francs,  ten  francs,  a  napo- 
leon if  he  would  show  us  through  it.     He  finally  grew  indignant 

and  said  : 

"  No,  no,  no  ;  not  for  ten  napoleons  will  I  let  you  see  it." 
The  fabrications  are  very  skillful,  and  even  the  experts  are 
sometimes  deceived  by  them.  The  safest  parties  to  deal  with 
are  the  Consuls  ;  they  are  all  merchants  of  antiquities,  but  even 
they  are  not  always  to  be  relied  upon,  as  they  have  families  to 
support  and  human  nature  is  weak.  What  wonder  if  a  consul 
who  has  to  maintain  dignity  and  an  office,  should  take  advantage 
of  circumstances  and  drive  a  sharp  transaction  whenever  he  finds 
a  rich  flat. 


CHAPTER     XLVI. 

LUXOR,  THE  CITY  OF  GIANTS.— AMONG  THE  MUMMIES  OF 
ANCIENT    THEBES. 

Luxor  on  the  Site  of  Ancient  Thebes— A  City  with  a  Hundred  Gates— Enjoying  a 
Consul's  Hospitality — An  American  Citizen  of  African  Descent — A  Dignified 
Rhinoceros — Karnak — A  City  of  Wonders — Promenading  in  an  Avenue  of 
Sphinxes — A  Gigantic  Temple — Monster  Obelisks — A  Story  in  Stone — A  Statue 
Weighing  Nine  Hundred  Tons— The  Sitting  Colossi— A  Singing  Statue— Myste* 
ries  of  Priestcraft — Lunching  in  the  Tomb  of  Rameses — A  Wonderful  Treasure — 
How  They  Made  Mummies — A  Curious  Process — The  "  Doubter  "  and  the  Mum- 
my Sellers — The  Judge  Comes  to  Grief. 

LUXOR  is  now  an  insignificant  town  of  four  thousand  in- 
habitants, occupying  the  site,  or  a  small  portion  of  it,  of  the 
ancient  city  of  Thebes,  from  whose  hundred  gates  twenty  thou- 
sand armed  chariots  could  be  sent  to  the  battle-field.  What  a 
melancholy  decline  from  the  days  of  Thotmes  and  Rameses  to 
the  present ! 

A  crowd  of  dirty  Arabs,  and  a  collection  of  hovels,  with  here 
and  there  a  house  having  S9me  pretence  of  respectability  and 
comfort  are  the  Thebes  of  to-day.  Were  it  not  for  the  ruins 
that  lie  around  us  we  should  have  only  to  write  "  Thebes  was," 
and  the  story  of  to-day  would  be  complete.  But  the  city  which 
fills  bright  pages  in  the  history  of  Egypt  was  too  great  and 
glorious  in  her  time,  and  the  monuments  she  built  were  too  stu- 
pendous to  be  easily  removed.  So  grand  were  her  temples  that 
the  work  of  destruction  was  an  enormous  one,  what  then  must 
have  been  the  labors  of  erection  ! 

(585) 


586  A    CONSUL    OF    AFRICAN    DRSCKXT. 

In  the  present  town  of  Luxor  there  is  little  to  be  seen  beyond 
the  temple  which  is  now  greatly  fallen  and  of  which  much  of  the 
sculptures  lie  buried.  There  is  no  effort  made  to  remove  the 
rubbish  that  lies  around  the  walls  and  upon  all  the  floors  ;  in  one 
part  the  English  Consul  has  his  office,  and  in  others  the  Arabs 
have  built  their  mud  hovels  among  the  columns  and  against  the 
sculptured  walls.  The  magnificence  around  them  has  not  served 
in  any  way  to  elevate  the  thoughts  of  these  natives ;  they  live 
in  a  superabundance  of  dirt,  and  the  contemplation  of  the  works 
of  art  ever  in  their  sight  has  been  no  more  to  them  than  to  their 
chickens  or  donkeys.  They  regard  the  ruins  solely  as  a  source 
of  profit,  and  they  persistently  beg  from  strangers  who  come  to 
visit  Thebes.  Most  of  the  Arabs  believe  that  the  strangers  who 
come  here  are  pagans,  and  that  they  make  pilgrimages  to  Thebes, 
Denderah,  and  Esneh,  just  as  good  Moslems  make  pilgrimages 
to  Mecca. 

We  devoted  an  hour  to  calling  on  the  consul,  where  we  were 
treated  to  pipes  and  to  coffee,  and  were  seated  on  the  divans  that 
filled  part  of  the  official  rooms.  The  American  Consul  is  of  a 
dark  hue,  something  more  than  a  mulatto,  and  one  of  our  party 
whose  notions  were  formerly  in  sympathy  with  slaveholding,  was 
rather  disinclined  to  accept  the  hospitality  of  a  gentleman  of 
African  descent.  But  we  pacified  him  by  the  information  that 
we  were  in  Africa  and  approaching  the  region  where  white  men 
were  at  a  discount,  and  with  this  view  of  the  case  he  subsided 
and  smoked  his  pipe  in  silence. 

The  "  Doubter"  was  rude  as  he  always  was  when  among  gen- 
tlemanly natives,  and  as  he  had  not  the  vice  of  smoking  he  won- 
dered what  we  were  staying  for.  The  Judge  reproved  him  for 
his  incivility,  and  for  a  minute  or  two  there  was  a  fair  prospect 
that  the  consul  would  be  able  to  collect  a  fee  for  suppressing  a 
row  in  his  own  office.  During  the  turmoil  the  Professor  and  I 
slipped  out  and  called  upon  the  German  Consul,  who  was  as  dig- 
nified as  a  rhinoceros  in  a  menagerie.  He  speaks  hardly  any- 
thing but  Arabic,  and  knows  of  only  one  man — Bismarck — in 
Germany  and  of  only  one  city — Berlin.  The  Professor  passed 
as  a  resident  of  Berlin  and  a  relative  of  Bismarck,  and  with  this 
view  of  the  case  he  was  most  cordially  received.    The  American 


THE    MARVELS   OF    KARXAK.  589 

Consul  speaks  English  quite  fairly.  The  vice-consulate  was 
formerly  held  by  Mustapha  Agar,  who  is  also  English  Vice- 
Consul,  and  his  removal  has  soured  him  somewhat  so  that  he  is 
not  over-polite  to  Americans.  He  is  the  oldest  consul  at  Luxor, 
and  one  of  the  oldest  residents,  and  has  grown  wealthy  in  the 
service  of  other  countries  than  his  own.  He  has  been  so  often 
petted  by  travellers  and .  praised  by  authors  who  have  been  here, 
that  he  has  become  spoiled,  and  has  the  pomposity  of  a  turkey- 
cock.  He  deals  in  scarabees,  mummies,  coins — everything  that 
you  like, — and  he  showed  us  as  did  the  other  consuls,  quite  a 
collection  of  antiquiiies.  They  can  furnish  you  with  the  head 
of  a  king  or  the  foot  of  a  princess  at  short  order,  and  as  for  old 
coins  the  Professor  found  enough  at  Luxor  to  set  up  a  museum 
of  numismatics. 

We  hired  donkeys  and  went  to  Karnak — something  more  than 
a  mile  from  Luxor — and  we  went  not  only  once  but  three  times. 

Karnak  is  more  than  marvellous  ;  to  do  justice  to  it  one  re- 
quires to  have  a  dozen  or  so  superlative  words  specially  invented 
for  the  place.  You  remain  silent  in  contemplating  it  as  you  find 
that  you  have  no  word  to  express  your  feelings  ;  you  are  sensi- 
ble that  to  speak  of  it  in  ordinary  terms  would  be  like  the  cock- 
ney's expression  of  "  neat"  applied  to  Niagara,  and  though  I  am 
intending  to  make  the  attempt  I  am  satisfied  that  I  shall  fall  far 
short  of  portraying  the  full  grandeur  of  the  scene  to  the  reader. 

As  you  approach  the  temple  you  enter  an  avenue  of  ram- 
headed  sphinxes  (huge  fellows  carved  in  stone),  on  opposite 
sides  of  the  avenue.  Formerly  this  street  extended  all  the  way 
to  Luxor — six  thousand  feet  away.  What  a  splendid  promenade 
it  must  have  been  !  Only  a  few  of  the  sphinxes  are  here  now, 
and  of  those  every  one  has  been  more  or  less  mutilated.  Passing 
the  avenue  you  reach  a  pronaos,  or  pylon, — a  gateway  with  two 
enormous  towers  large  enough  of  themselves  to  make  a  temple. 
There  were  no  less  than  six  of  these  entrances.  Just  to  give  an 
idea  of  their  size  I  will  give  the  dimensions  of  one  of  the  peris- 
tyles. Its  total  length  is  three  hundred  and  seventy  feet,  its 
depth  is  fifty  feet,  and  its  height  one  hundred  and  forty  feet. 
The  temple  faces  the  river,  and  the  towers  can  be  seen  from  a 
long  distance.  One  of  these  fronting  the  river  is  partly  fallen, 
but  the  other  is  nearly  perfect. 


590 


STUPENDOUS    RUINS. 


A  detailed  description  of  the  temple  at  Karnak  would  be  dry- 
reading,  and  I  will  simply  state  that  from  end  to  end  the  length  is 
eleven  hundred  and  eighty  feet,  and  that  it  is  about  six  hundred 
feet  in  breadth.  The  whole  was  surrounded  by  a  wall  twenty- 
five  feet  thick  and  from  sixty  to  a  hundred  feet  high.  All  this 
space  inclosed  by  the  wall  is  filled  with  ruins  of  an  architecture 
of  the  most  magnificent  character.  In  one  place  there  are  the 
fragments  of  a  fallen  obelisk,  and  close  by  it  is  a  standing 
obelisk  ninety-two  feet  high  and  eight  feet  square  at  the 
base,  the  largest  obelisk  now  known.  There  is  another,  seventy- 
five  feet  high,  a  little  from  it,  and  there  is  another  obelisk  stand- 
ing at  Luxor,  the  mate  of  it  having  been  removed  to  Paris.  The 
French  government  removed  the  Luxor  obelisk  only  after  many 
attempts  and  failures.  The  obelisk  at  Karnak — the  great  one — 
was  given  to  the  English  government,  but  they  never  attempted 
to  take  it  away. 

How  did  the  Egyptians  manage  to  move  these  masses  of  stone 
from  the  quarries  at  Assouan,  and  to  put  them  in  place .''  I  give 
it  up. 

Do  you  know  where  is  the  most  stupendous  hall  in  the  world  ? 
It  is  in  the  temple  at  Karnak.  It  is  three  hundred  and  twenty- 
nine  feet  long  and  one  hundred  and  seventy  feet  broad  ;  it  has 
down  its  centre,  twelve  columns,  each  sixty  feet  high  {without 
counting  capital  and  pedestal),  and  twelve  feet  in  diameter. 
Then  besides  these  there  are  one  hundred  and  twenty-two  other 
columns  (arranged  in  fourteen  rows,  seven  on  each  side  of  the 
central  rows),  forty-two  feet  high  and  nine  feet  in  diameter. 
Thus  there  are  one  hundred  and  thirty-four  columns  in  this  great 
hall,  and  all  of  them  are  covered  with  sculptures.  There  was 
once  a  roof  over  the  hall,  but  it  is  mostly  gone  now,  and  some 
of  the  columns  have  fallen.  Seven  of  us,  with  our  outstretched 
hands  touching  each  other,  were  just  able  to  encircle  one  of  the 
great  columns.  Compared  with  this  hall  of  the  temple,  the  Par- 
thenon at  Athens  becomes  of  dwarfish  size.  All  around  are 
stones  of  great  size  that  once  formed  parts  of  the  temple ; 
everything  around  is  so  great  that  the  stones  do  not  appear 
large  till  you  stand  close  beside  them,  and  then  you  realize  their 
extent  and  your  littleness. 


THE    RUINS    BY  MOONLIGHT.  59I 

As  at  Abydos  and  Denderah  the  walls  of  the  temple,  the  faces 
of  the  pylons,  the  columns,  the  pillars,  the  sides  of  the  encir- 
cling wall,  everything  and  everywhere,  were  covered  with  sculp- 
tures. The  most  of  the  sculptures  were  battle  scenes,  but  there 
were  many  that  represented  offerings  to  the  deities.  In  the  his- 
torical pictures  the  campaigns  of  the  kings  were  represented, 
and  one  who  has  time  and  patience  to  study  them  can  read  the 
story  of  a  campaign.  Here  the  king  is  marching  out  with  his 
army,  and  next  he  is  attacking  a  fortress  ;  next  he  is  routing  the 
enemy  and  driving  them  across  a  river ;  next  he  is  returning  in 
triumph,  and  there  is  a  long  series  of  the  cities  he  passes  through 
on  his  return. 

On  the  front  wall  of  a  tower  of  a  pylon,  the  king  is  repre- 
sented striking  off  the  heads  of  a  group  of  captives,  and  these 
representations  are  so  frequent  as  to  make  it  pretty  certain  that 
the  Egyptians  were  accustomed  to  offer  human  sacrifices.  The 
hands,  and  sometimes  other  portions  of  the  bodies  of  the  slain 
enemies,  are  cut  off  and  piled  before  the  king  ;  and  some  of  the 
pictures  are  of  a  kind  that  could  hardly  be  reproduced  in  a 
family  album  of  the  present  time.  The  king  is  nearly  always 
represented  of  much  greater  stature  than  those  that  surround 
him,  and  the  Egyptians  were  generally  so  doubtful  of  the  faces 
of  their  rulers  reaching  posterity,  that  they  were  careful  to  en- 
grave their  names  on  most  of  the  pictures  and  to  detail  the  inci- 
dents described. 

This  temple  was  not  the  work  of  one  but  of  several  kings, 
and  there  is  a  chronological  difference  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  between  the  earliest  and  latest  sculptures.  There  is  much 
dispute  as  to  the  antiquity  of  the  edifice,  but  it  is  generally  con- 
ceded to  have  been  completed  not  less  than  fifteen  centuries 
before  the  Christian  era. 

One  of  our  visits  was  made  by  moonlight,  and  the  effect  of 
light  and  shade,  especially  in  the  great  hall,  was  beautiful  be- 
yond description,  and  therefore  I  forbear  attempting  to  describe 
it  We  disturbed  several  jackals  and  bats,  the  only  occupants 
of  the  ruins. 

There  is  an  Arab  village  close  to  the  temple,  but  it  docs  not 
extend  into  the  great  structure.     The  water  of  the  Nile  enters 


592 


THE  FAMOUS  BROKEN  STATUE. 


the  ruins  at  the  time  of  the  inundation,  and  is  eating  away  the 
base  of  the  columns,  so  that  several  have  fallen  from  its  effects. 
The  Egyptian  architects,  while  producing  magnificent  super- 
structures, were  curiously  negligent  of  the  foundations. 

On  the  west  bank  of  the  Nile  are  several  temples,  the  most 
prominent  of  them  being  the  Memnonium  or  Rameseum,  and 
Medinet  Aboo. 

Both  were  on  the  same  general  plan  of  Egyptian  temples,  and 
second  only  to  Karnak  in  greatness  ;  there  are  other  temples 
around  here — half  a  dozen  or  more — and  each  has  its  peculiar 
historical  and  religious  sculptures  covering  the  walls. 

In  the  court  yard  of  the  Rameseum  is  an  overturned  and  broken 
statue  of  Rameses  III,  the  builder  of  the  temple.  It  was  de- 
stroyed by  the  Persians  at  the  time  of  the  invasion  of  Egypt,  but 
they  did  not  succeed  in  obliterating  it.  The  figure  was  a  sitting 
one  like  many  of  the  statues  of  Egypt.  The  throne  and  legs 
were  reduced  to  comparatively  small  fragments,  but  the  upper 
part,  broken  at  the  waist,  lies  comparatively  perfect  and  enables 
us  to  judge  of  the  great  size  of  the  figure.  It  is  not  sufficient  to 
say  that  it  was  the  largest  statue  ever  hewn  from  a  single  block 
and  transported  two  or  three  hundred  miles.  It  is  calculated  to 
have  weighed  (when  entire)  not  far  from  nine  hundred  tons.  It 
was  nearly  twenty  feet  across  the  shoulders  of  the  statue,  and 
the  foot  of  the  figure  was  eleven  feet  from  toe  to  heel.  From 
the  shoulder  to  the  elbow  was  nearly  five  yards,  and  the  other 
measurements  were  in  proportion. 

On  the  plain  toward  the  river  and  quite  a  distance  in  front  of 
the  Rameseum  are  the  sitting  Colossi.  They  were  made  to  repre- 
sent one  of  the  Kings,  and  one  at  least  was  cut  from  a  single  block. 
The  height  of  the  figures  is  about  fifty  feet,  and  they  originally 
had  pedestals  ten  feet  high.  The  soil  has  risen  considerably 
since  their  erection  and  is  now  about  seven  feet  above  their  base. 

There  they  sit  as  they  have  sat  for  centuries  looking  out  upon 
the  plain  of  Thebes  and  across  the  Nile  to  Luxor.  What  stories 
they  might  tell  were  they  possessed  of  memory  and  the  power  of 
articulation  ;  more  than  thirty  centuries  of  the  world's  history  rest 
behind  those  stony  lips  ;  more  than  three  thousand  years  have 
come  and  gone  since  first  these  forms  were  fashioned  by  the 


THE    VOCAL    MEMNON. 


595 


hands  of  man  and  placed  where  we  find  them  to-day.  The  city 
they  once  adorned  has  crumbled  to  dust  and  disappeared,  and 
they  sit  alone  and  uncared  for,  save  when  some  passing  stranger 
drawn  by  curiosity  comes  and  gazes  irreverently  upon  them  and 
glances  at  the  ground  they  have  watched  and  guarded  so  long 

One  of  these  statues  is  the  famous  Vocal  Memnon  which  ora- 
tors and  poets  have  frequently  drawn   upon   for  illustrations  and 


SITTING    COLOSSI. 


which  many  a  writer  has  found  very  useful.  History  and  tradi- 
tion say  that  sounds  issued  from  it  when  the  rays  of  the  rising 
sun  fell  upon  its  face  ;  one  authority  says  these  sounds  were  mu- 
sical, and  others  that  they  resembled  the  snapping  of  a  bow-string 
or  a  blow  upon  a  piece  of  metal.  The  statue  was  very  fastidious 
in  its  youth,  and  many  times  when  distinguished  persons  came 


596  TRICKS    OF    PRIESTCRAFT. 

from  distant  lands  to  see  it,  not  a  sound  could  be  heard  from  it. 
Sometimes  when  Grand  Moguls  like  the  Emperor  Hadrian  and 
other  heavy  swells  came  along  it  was  more  complaisant,  and  ven- 
tured to  let  itself  out,  and  on  a  few  occasions  it  even  sounded 
twice,  a  circumstance  which  ought  to  have  been  regarded  with 
more  suspicion  than  the  absence  of  a  date  to  Mr.  Pickwick's 
note  announcing  his  non-return  to  dinner. 

There  can  be  but  little  doubt  that  the  sound  was  a  trick  of  the 
priests,  as  there  is  a  stone  in  the  lap  of  the  statue  and  behind  it 
is  a  niche  where  a  person  could  be  completely  concealed  from 
the  view  of  the  crowd  below. 

We  hired  an  Arab  to  climb  up  and  strike  the  stone,  and  we  had 
the  performance  not  only  once  but  half  a  dozen  times,  all  for  half 
a  franc  for  the  entire  party,  or  less  than  a  third  of  a  cent  each. 
Some  things  are  dearer  now  than  in  the  olden  time,  but  the 
Memnon  business  is  cheaper.  Two  thousand  years  ago  you  had 
to  be  there  at  sunrise  and  sometimes  you  had  to  go  two  or  three 
days  in  succession,  before  you  heard  the  sound,  as  the  priest  who 
struck  the  stone  would  happen  to  be  off  on  a  drunk  or  neglecting 
his  business.  But  now  a  little  "  backsheesh"  will  settle  the  mat- 
ter at  any  hour  of  the  day  and  it  would  keep  on  a  week  if  you 
were  willing  to  pay  for  the  fun. 

We  spent  a  day  among  the  tombs  of  the  Kings,  which  are  in  a 
valley  four  or  five  miles  back  from  the  river ;  there  are  lots  of 
tombs  there,  fifty  or  more,  some  of  them  being  the  burial  places 
of  the  kings,  and  others  those  of  queens,  of  priests,  of  common 
people,  and  even  of  cats,  dogs,  ibises,  crocodiles,  and  other  beasts, 
birds,  and  reptiles. 

I  have  said  fifty,  I  might  better  have  said  there  are  four  times 
that  number  as  nobody  seems  to  know  how  many  tombs  there 
are  in  the  hills  back  of  Thebes,  and  every  one  admits  they  are 
very  extensive. 

The  most  interesting,  are  the  tombs  of  the  Kings,  and  also 
those  of  the  priests  ;  we  entered  half  a  dozen  of  the  first  and  one 
of  the  latter  and  made  as  thorough  an  investigation  as  was  pos- 
sible. Some  were  discovered  by  Bruce  and  some  by  Belzoni,  and 
some  by  more  modern  explorers.  Every  few  years  a  fresh  tomb 
is  opened  and  important  revelations  are  made.     Any  person  who 


LUNCHING    IN    AN    ANCIENT   TOMB.  59/ 

wishes  to  dig  among  these  tombs  can  obtain  the  permission  of 
the  proper  authorities  and  an  officer  will  be  sent  to  superintend 
his  work  and  see  that  he  gives  a  proper  account  of  the 
treasures  he  finds.  Most  of  the  tombs  that  have  been  opened 
have  been  stripped  of  their  contents  and  nothing  remains 
except  the  mural  sculptures  and  paintings.  Some  of  these  are  of 
a  most  exquisite  character  and  show  that  the  Egyptians  were 
well  advanced  in  the  art  of  drawing.  The  tombs  consist  of  long 
passages  cut  into  the  rock,  some  of  them  horizontal ;  some  de- 
scending and  some  with  one,  two,  or  it  may  be  half  a  dozen  lateral 
chambers  and  apartments.  Passages,  halls,  and  chambers  are  all 
decorated  with  the  same  profusion  as  are  the  temples,  and  in 
some  of  them  the  colors  are  laid  on  with  great  care.  Egyptian 
life  and  its  manners  and  customs,  the  arms  and  implements  in 
use,  the  employments  of  the  people,  their  religious  belief,  the 
ceremonies  of  burial,  and  many  other  things  can  be  learned  by  a 
study  of  these  tombs,  and  they  have  probably  been  more  useful 
in  chis  respect  than  have  the  temples,  which  are  generally  de- 
voted to  religious  subjects  and  incidents  in  the  life  of  the  King 
whom  they  commemorate. 

We  lighted  them  up  with  candles  and  magnesium  wire  ;  we 
wandered  through  the  halls  and  chambers,  and  we  took  lunch 
one  day  in  the  entrance  of  a  tomb  which  was  once  the  post-mor- 
tem house  of  Rameses  III.  Did  the  old  fellow  ever  suspect  that 
a  party  of  travellers  would  in  the  present  century  devour  cold 
chicken  and  ham  sandwiches,  and  smoke  cigars  and  pipes  and 
cigarettes  at  his  door  ? 

Most  of  the  tombs  that  have  been  opened  have  been  found 
rifled  of  their  valuables,  and  the  modern  explorer  has  to  be  con- 
tented with  the  granite  coffins,  and  is  very  fortunate  if  he  can 
find  a  royal  mummy.  M.  Mariette  discovered  and  opened  in 
1859  the  cofifin  of  Queen  Aah  Hotep,  which  contained  a  remark- 
able collection  of  jewelry. 

She  is  thought  to  have  been  one  of  the  Queens  of  the  XVIIIth 
Dynasty,  and  to  have  lived  about  thirty-five  hundred  years  ago. 
There  were  bracelets  and  other  ornaments  of  lapis  lazuli,  carne- 
lian,  feldspar,  and  turquoise  set  in  gold,  and  there  was  a  gold 
chain  nearly  a  yard  long  and  framed  of  fine  wire  intricately  woven. 


598  HOW    MUMMIES    WERE    MADE. 

The  collection  was  in  the  Paris  exhibition  of  '6^,  where  it  took 
the  prize.  The  French  jewellers  said  it  would  be  difficult  for 
them  with  all  their  skill  to  mend  this  chain  if  it  were  broken,  and 
they  admitted  that  the  goldsmith's  art  in  the  days  of  Queen  Aah 
Hotep  was  little  inferior  to  that  of  to-day. 

The  body  of  an  Egyptian  was  prepared  for  burial  by  the  re- 
moval of  the  brains,  intestines,  and  viscera  generally  ;  it  was  then 
soaked  in  nitre  for  seventy  days,  and  afterwards  filled  with  salt 
and  aromatic  herbs.  It  was  then  carefully  bandaged,  every  finger 
and  toe  being  separately  wrapped,  and  there  is  not  a  bandage 
known  to  modern  surgery  with  which  the  Egyptians  were  not 
familiar.  The  bandages  were  soaked  in  preservative  gums  and 
the  body  thus  carefully  prepared  was  placed  in  a  wooden  coffin, 
shaped  to  the  body,  and  covered  with  hieroglyphics,  which  were 
generally  passages  from  the  Book  of  the  Dead.  Then  this  was 
placed  in  a  stone  coffin,  this  again  in  a  larger  one,  and  sometimes 
the  whole  was  enclosed  in  another.  The  number  of  the  coffins 
and  the  care  of  preparations  depended  upon  the  rank  and  wealth 
of  the  deceased  very  much  as  do  the  funeral  ceremonies  of  to- 
day. The  jewels  of  the  deceased  were  enclosed  with  him,  and 
this  practice  has  led  to  the  opening  of  so  many  tombs  since  the 
decline  of  the  ancient  Empire. 

You  can  buy  whole  mummies,  or  parts  of  them,  of  the  Arabs, 
around  Thebes,  but  they  are  all  the  remains  of  common  people. 
The  supply  of  Kings  was  limited  from  the  outset  and  has  long 
been  exhausted.  The  demand  is  far  greater  than  the  supply. 
I  asked  repeatedly  for  a  king  or  for  a  live  mummy,  but  in  every 
instance  was  told  that  I  could  not  be  gratified  I  would  give  a 
good  deal  for  a  genuine  monarch,  and  was  in  the  market  for  one 
all  the  time  I  was  at  Luxor,  but  in  vain. 

All  the  way  back  to  the  river  the  Arabs  kept  near  us  trying  to 
sell  antiquities,  but  we  were  not  inclined  to  purchase.  One  fel- 
low had  a  mummy  head  that  had  a  remarkably  fresh  look,  and  I 
was  told  by  the  dragoman  that  when  the  supply  of  mummies  runs 
short,  the  natives  dig  up  the  skulls  and  arms  from  their  own 
cemeteries  and  offer  them  for  sale.  I  accused  this  merchant  of 
endeavoring  to  dispose  of  the  head  of  his  grandfather,  but  he  de- 
nied the  imputation,  and  said  it  was  a  real  mummy.     I  promised 


SELLING    HUMAN    HKADS. 


599 


him  a  piastre  if  he  would  walk  by  the  side  of  the  "  Doubter"  and 
continue  to  offer  the  head  to  him  all  the  way  back  to  the  river, 
and  to  assist  the  offer  by  holding  the  skull  in  front  of  the  old  fel- 
low's face.  He  earned  his  money,  and  the  "  Doubter"  afterward 
said  that  he  never  saw  an  Arab  so  persistent  as  that  one.  I  was 
sorry  that  we  could  not  hire  the  native  to  go  along  with  us  and 
keep  his  bone-yard 
ever  in  view  of  our 
crusty  and  penurious 
companion. 

The  road  from'  the 
tombs  to  the  river 
winds  among  the  lime- 
stone hills,  and  in  the 
middle  of  the  day  the 
heat  is  great.  Rain 
falls  here  very  rarely, 
but  there  are  indica- 
tions of  great  torrents 
through  these  ravines 
at  some  remote  day. 
Rain  was  evidently 
not  unknown  to  the 
ancients,  as  the  tem- 
ples of  Denderah  and  other  places  were  supplied  with  water 
spouts  to  carry  off  the  showers  that  evidently  fell  there. 

We  crossed  the  river  in  a  small  boat.  The  water  is  shallow  at 
the  shore  on  the  western  bank  and  we  had  to  be  carried  to  and 
from  the  boat.  The  Arabs  transported  us  with  ease,  and  were 
rewarded  very  fairly  for  their  work,  but  of  course  they  wanted 
more.  Some  of  them  handled  their  burdens  very  carefully,  and 
others  tumbled  them  in  with  little  ceremony.  The  Judge  came 
in  over  the  side  much  like  a  sack  of  wheat,  and  went  into  a  lump 
at  the  bottom  of  the  boat.  He  was  rather  disconcerted  at  the 
performance  as  it  rended  his  already  dilapidated  garments  and 
caused  him  to  seek  the  seclusion  of  his  own  room  as  soon  as  we 
were  on  board  the  steamer.  Another  of  the  party  was  dropped 
into  the  water  but  was  saved  without  any  worse  mishap  than  a 
good  wetting  and  a  provocation  to  profanity. 


A   FRESH   ONE. 


CHAPTER      XLVII. 


A  VISIT  TO  A   HAREM  IN  UPPER   EGYPT.— LIFE  AMONG  THE 

NUBIANS. 

A  Visit  to  a  Harem — Among  the  Daughters  of  the  Nile — How  they  Looked  and 
What  was  Done — Painted  Eyelids — The  Use  of  Henna — A  Minute  Inspection 
of  Garments — Mustapha  Agar  "At  Home" — Arab  Astonishment — A  Dinners 
VArabe — Fingers  vs.  Forks — An  Array  of  Queer  Dishes — Novel  Refreshment — 
Dancing  Girls — Truck  and  Decker  at  Luxor — More  "Ghawazee,"  Pipes  and 
Coffee — "  A  Love  of  a  Donkey  " — Song  of  Arabs — Arab  Cruelty — A  Nation  of 
Stoics — Endurance  of  Pain — Among  the  Nubians — Ostriches,  Arrows  and  Battle 
Axes — A  Nubian  Dress — A  Very  Small  Dressmaker's  Bill — A  Scanty  Wardrobe. 

THE  ladies  of  the  party  did  not  accompany  us  to  the  Tombs 
of  the  Kings,  as  the  day  was  hot  and  the  ride  a  long  one. 
Besides,  they  had  what  was  more  attractive  to  them,  an  invita- 
tion to  visit  the  harem  of  the  English  Consul. 

I  volunteered  to  accompany  them,  but  my  escort  Vv^as  declined, 
for  the  reason  that  gentlemen  were  not  admitted  any  more  than 
they  were  to  the  studios  of  some  of  the  fortune-tellers  of  New 
York.  When  we  returned  to  the  boat,  they  were  in  great  glee, 
and  it  was  not  long  before  we  had  all  the  details,  or  at  any  rate, 
all  that  they  chose  to  give  us.  We  hardly  recognized  them,  as 
their  eyelids  had  been  stained  with  henna,  after  the  Arabic  man- 
ner, giving  a  great  prominence  and  lustre  to  the  eye.  The  result 
is  the  same  as  that  obtained  by  actresses  and  others,  who  apply 
red  paint  around  the  eyes  and  not  upon  the  lids. 

I  will  try  to  give  the  story  as  nearly  as  possible,  in  the  words 

(600) 


FEMININE    CUKIOSITV.  603 

of  one  of  the  fair  visitors.  I  endeavored  to  induce  her  to  write 
it  out  for  me,  but  she  shrunk  from  the  effort  as  something  her- 
culean, and  all  my  prayers  were  of  no  avail. 

"  We  went  to  the  consulate,"  said  the  narrator,  "  and  there  we 
found  Mustapha  Agar  waiting  for  us.  We  walked  from  there  to 
his  house,  which  is  quite  pretty  when  you  get  inside,  and  has  a 
sort  of  garden  on  a  balcony,  and  from  this  balcony  we  went  into 
the  harem.  The  consul  staid  outside  with  Mr. (the  hus- 
band of  one  of  the  visitors),  and  we  were  shown  in  by  one  of 
the  slaves.  The  consul's  son,  who  speaks  English,  went  in  for 
a  few  moments  and  interpreted,  but  for  the  rest  of  the  time  we 
had  to  talk  by  signs,  as  the  women  spoke  nothing  but  Arabic. 
There  were  half  a  dozen  women,  some  the  wives  of  the  consul, 
and  some  the  wives  of  his  son,  but  we  didn't  know  which  were 
which. 

"  They  saluted  us  in  Arabic  as  we  entered,  and  asked  us  to  sit 
down  on  the  carpet  with  them,  and  we  squatted  as  best  we  could. 
There  were  divans  at  the  side  of  the  room,  and  a  rich  carpet  in 
the  centre,  and  we  sat  on  the  carpet  more  than  on  the  divans. 
The  women  wore  the  loose  dress  of  the  Arabs  and  had  no  veils 
on  their  faces  ;  one  of  them,  a  young  girl  of  fifteen  or  about, 
had  a  very  richly-embroidered  dress,  much  better  than  that  of 
any  other,  and  I  thought  she  must  be  the  favorite  of  either  the 
consul  or  his  son.  They  began  at  once  to  examine  us,  to  look 
at  our  faces,  our  boots,  our  clothing,  and  everything,  and  we  re- 
turned the  compliment  by  examining  them.     What  most  excited 

their  curiosity  was  Mrs, 's  hair.    They  pinched  it  and  looked 

at  it  in  all  sorts  of  ways,  took  it  down,  and  were  not  easy  till 
they  had  satisfied  themselves  that  it  was  natural,  and  even  then 
they  kept  examining  it  and  feeling  it  in  their  fingers  every  few 
minutes  until  we  came  away." 

I  remark  by  way  of  explanation  that  the  lady  referred  to 
was  English,  and  her  hair  was  of  the  pure  blonde  type.  It  was 
of  a  golden  hue,  rich  and  glossy,  and  was  no  doubt  the  first  of 
its  kind  that  these  Arab  women  had  ever  seen.  I  do  not  wonder 
that  their  curiosity  was  aroused. 

"  Before  we  knew  what  they  were  about,  they  had  our  heads 
in  their  laps  and  were  staining  our  eyeUds  ;  they  wanted  to  stain 


604  AN    ARAB    DINNER. 

our  finger-nails  and  tattoo  our  chins,  but  we  declined.  Several 
times  they  renewed  the  request,  but  we  thought  it  was  enough 
to  have  our  eyehds  stained  in  this  way.  They  had  their  hair 
loose,  with  the  exception  of  bands  around  their  heads  ;  the  young 
girl  had  a  rich  head-dress,  with  a  great  many  pieces  of  gold  at- 
tached to  it,  and  her  hair  was  of  a  jet  black.  They  served  us 
pipes  and  coffee,  and  were  much  surprised  that  we  didn't  smoke. 
We  drank  the  coffee,  and  they  made  us  take  a  few  whiffs  from 

the  nargJiilcJi,  and  were  much  amused  when  Mrs. swallowed 

some  of  the  smoke  and  began  to  cough. 

"  We  staid  there  about  half  an  hour.  When  we  came  away 
they  embraced  us,  but  did  not  kiss  us,  and  they  didn't  let  us  off 

until  they  had  taken  another  pinch  at  Mrs. 's  hair.     They 

followed  us  to  the  door  and  intimated  by  signs  that  they  would 
like  to  go  to  see  us  on  the  boat." 

The  next  evening  a  party  went  to  dine  a  V Arabe  at  the  Eng- 
glish  consulate,  but  as  a  part  of  them  were  masculine  they  were 
not  admitted  to  the  harem.  The  party  was  seated  on  the  car- 
pet, and  the  table  was  about  two  feet  high,  just  high  enough  to 
be  comfortably  reached  from  the  seat  on  the  floor.  Hands  were 
washed  before  and  after  the  meal,  and  sometimes  between  the 
courses,  the  water  being  brought  by  a  servant  and  poured  upon 
the  hands  after  the  Eastern  manner. 

There  were  about  twenty  courses  in  all, — soup,  meats,  and 
pates  of  various  kinds, — and  all  were  eaten  with  the  hands  ex- 
cept the  soup,  for  which  spoons  were  supplied.  The  consul 
presided  at  the  table,  and  his  sons  supervised  the  service,  which 
was  quite  rapid.  The  bones  were  piled  on  the  table  in  front  of 
each  guest,  and  were  afterward  removed.  Some  of  the  viands 
were  so  hot  that  one  or  two  of  the  guests  found  their  hands 
somewhat  burned.  There  was  an  abundant  supply,  enough  for 
a  party  four  times  as  large,  and  the  cooking  was  said  to  be  very 
good.  The  most  prominent  article  was  a  turkey  which  was 
brought  on  whole,  and  from  which  each  person  tore  off  what  he 
wanted.  There  were  no  knives  or  forks  at  the  table,  and  some 
of  the  visitors  made  rather  awkward  work  getting  along  without 
them. 

All  ate  from  the  same  soup-dish  without  hesitation,  and  luckily 


ORIENTAL   IDEA    OF   DANCING.  605 

they  did  not  have  time  to  continue  at  it  long.  The  etiquette  was 
to  take  only  a  few  mouthfuUs  of  each  dish,  and  whether  good  or 
bad,  the  dishes  were  not  allowed  to  stay.  Roasts,  entrees,  pates, 
pilaufs,  succeeded  each  other  rapidly,  and  before  the  party  was 
aware  that  the  end  had  come,  the  host  gave  the  signal  by  rising 
and  the  table  was  removed. 

After  the  disappearance  of  the  festive  board,  there  was  an 
Oriental  dance.  Four  ghawazee  with  their  musicians  were 
brought  into  the  parlor,  and  the  dance  began  at  once.  Pipes 
and  coffee  had  been  served  the  instant  the  table  disappeared, 
and  the  party  took  its  position  on  the  divans  where  they  could 
look  on  with  complaisance. 

The  Orientals  understand  dancing  in  its  true  sense,  and  can- 
not comprehend  why  we  should  caper  through  a  waltz  or  a  cotil- 
lion, when  we  can  hire  somebody  to  do  it  for  us. 

"Why  don't  you  make  your  servants  do  this .-'"  was  the  won- 
dering inquiry  of  a  Chinese  official,  when  invited  to  a  ball  given 
by  some  of  the  English  residents  of  Hong  Kong. 

The  day  at  length  arrived  for  our  departure  from  Thebes,  and 
as  the  boat  steamed  away  from  the  landing  the  crowd  on  shore 
sung  a  farewell  chorus,  the  consuls  fired  guns  and  pistols,  and 
the  whole  town  in  fact  seemed  bent  on  making  as  much  noise  as 
possible. 

The  market  for  antiquities  declined  rapidly  before  our  depart- 
ure, and  articles  were  offered  at  less  than  half  the  figures  that 
ruled  on  the  day  of  our  arrival. 

We  tied  up  as  usual  during  the  night,  and  next  morning  about 
breakfast  time  we  were  at  Esneh,  a  town  of  six  or  seven  thousand 
inhabitants  and  containing  a  temple  of  which  only  a  small  por- 
tion has  been  cleared  out.  The  remainder  is  quite  covered  by 
the  houses  of  the  modern  town,  and  is  thought  to  be  quite  ex- 
tensive. The  portico,  the  only  portion  visible,  is  reached  by  a 
stairway  which  we  descended  to  the  floor.  The  columns  are 
well  preserved  but  the  sculptures  are  injured  somewhat,  and  in 
places  are  hardly  legible. 

Most  of  the  features  of  the  gods  are  broken,  and  this  is  the 
case  in  a  large  number  of  the  temples  of  Upper  Egypt.  The 
injury  is  attributed  to  the  Persians,  but  a  large  portion  of  it  is 
34 


606  "A    LOVE    OF    A    DONKEY." 

due  to  the  early  Christians,  who  sought  in  their  religious  zeal  to 
destroy  the  evidences  of  pagan  worship.  In  some  temples  they 
plastered  over  the  sculptures,  and  thus  unintentionally  preserved 
them.  The  plaster  has  been  removed  in  modern  times,  and  the 
sculptures  are  found  in  excellent  condition. 

Esneh  is  famous,  like  Keneh,  for  its  dancing  girls,  and  there 
is  quite  a  colony  of  them  at  the  southern  side  of  the  town.  We 
visited  their  quarter  in  the  evening,  and  were  beset  by  the  young 
ladies  with  appeals  for  "  backsheesh"  and  invitations  to  visit  their 
households  and  witness  a  dance. 

There  are  several  cafes  on  the  bank  just  above  the  river,  and 
we  found  quite  a  collection  of  Arabs  in  them.  They  were  smok- 
ing their  pipes,  sipping  coffee,  and  singing  and  looking  very  dig- 
nified and  disinclined  to  move.  The  Arab  song  may  be  best 
described  as  a  monotonous  chant,  consisting  of  about  four  mea- 
sures and  a  chorus  like  a  prolonged  '^ah-ah".  They  sing  every- 
where, but  more  especially  when  at  work  together.  Men  engaged 
in  rowing  or  pulling  a  boat  are  constantly  singing ;  one  sings 
the  measure  and  the  whole  join  in  the  chorus.  The  song  may 
be  on  any  subject,  like  popular  airs  everywhere,  and  frequently  are 
extemporized  by  the  singers.  I  was  much  struck  with  their 
resemblance  to  the  songs  of  the  negro  deck  hands  on  the  Mis- 
sissippi steamers,  and  also  to  those  of  the  Canadian  voyageiirs 
on  the  St.  Lawrence  and  its  tributary  rivers.  The  boatmen  of 
the  Volga  and  the  Dwina  have  also  similar  songs  while  rowing 
or  pulling  their  craft. 

One  of  the  prettiest  things  I  saw  at  Esneh  was,  not  a  girl, 
but  a  donkey.  He  was  a  beauty,  and  I  would  have  given  more 
for  his  photograph  than  for  that  of  any  human  being  I  saw 
there.  His  color  was  white,  but  according  to  the  Arab  custom 
his  hair  was  closely  shaven.  He  was  plump,  round,  and  large  ; 
his  ears  were  perfectly  erect,  and  his  trappings  were  rich  and 
evidently  selected  with  taste.  He  belonged  to  the  governor,  who 
was  pleased  at  the  admiration  bestowed  upon  his  property,  and 
stood  approvingly  by  while  one  of  the  artists  of  our  party  took 
a  sketch  of  the  animal.  I  ventured  to  ask  how  much  such  a 
donkey  would  be  worth. 

*'  I  paid  twenty  pounds  for  him,"  replied  the  governor,  "  when 


A  CHICKEN  WITHOUT  FEATHERS. 


607 


he  was  a  year  old.     I  have  since  refused  a  hundred  pounds,  and 
I  should  refuse  two  hundred  if  anybody  should  offer  it." 

Above  Esneh  there  are  several  places  containing  the  ruins  of 
temples,  of  which  the  most  interesting  is  that  of  Edfou.  Only 
since  1864  has  it  been  visible  ;  up  to  that  time  it  was  covered  by 
rubbish  and  the  houses  of  the  modern  village  so  that  only  the 
propylon  tombs  were  visible.  The  long-accumulaJ:ed  rubbish  had 
helped  to  preserve  it  so,  that  when  it  was  cleared  out  the  sculp- 
tures were  found  in  better  condition  than  in  most  other  temples. 

The  temple  greatly  resembles  that  of  Denderah  and  has 
numerous  small 
chambers  that 
were  used  for 
the  storage  of 
valuable  articles 
used  in  the  sa- 
cred ceremonies. 
The  sanctuary 
contains  a  sanc- 
tum sanctonim,  a 
large  cage  cut 
from  a  single 
block  of  granite, 
and  once  enclos- 
ing the  hawk 
which  was  the 
emblem  of  the  divinity  to  whose  worship  the  temple  was  dedicated. 

That  night  while  we  lay  at  the  landing,  one  of  the  ladies  came 
to  induce  us  to  perform  a  work  of  charity.  She  had  discovered 
that  the  cooks  in  preparing  chickens  for  the  table  did  not  kill  the 
birds  until  after  plucking  the  feathers,  and  sometimes  a  feather- 
less  chicken  would  get  loose  and  run  around  the  bank.  We 
went  out  to  the  place  on  shore  where  the  picking  was  in  progress 
and  found  that  her  story  was  correct.  We  called  the  dragoman 
and  had  him  explain  to  the  Arabs  that  such  a  custom  was  not 
pleasing  and  that  hereafter  they  must  kill  the  chickens  before 
picking  them.  They  were  astonished  at  the  suggestion,  but 
promised  compliance. 


A    MURDEROUS   ASSAULT. 


6o8  ORIENTAL    CRUELTY, 

The  Orientals  are  thoughtlescly  cruel,  and  this  arises  partly 
from  a  lack  of  nerves  in  their  own  organization.  A  Chinese  will 
sit  in  a  chair  or  ride  in  a  cart  that  would  be  torture  to  a  Eu- 
ropean, and  a  Turk  or  an  Arab  will  sleep  on  a  hard  bed  when  he 
could  have  an  easier  one  if  he  chose.  A  native  of  any  part  of 
the  Orient  is  less  sensitive  than  an  Occidental  to  a  cudgeling, 
and  he  is  quite  indifferent  to  the  sufferings  of  animals.  No  dog 
in  London  or  New  York  would  be  regarded  as  indifferently  by 
the  inhabitants  pi  those  cities  as  are  the  dogs  of  Constantinople 
and  Cairo  by  the  Mohammedans.  They  beat  their  donkeys  and 
buffaloes  with  great  cruelty  ;  one  of  the  unpleasant  features  of 
riding  on  a  donkey  is  the  pounding  that  the  brute  receives  from 
his  driver,  and  when  he  is  doing  his  best  he  will  frequently  get  a 
blow  that  would  floor  a  man.  Many  of  the  donkeys  have  large 
sores  where  their  hips  have  been  punched  with  sharp  sticks,  and 
these  sores  are  kept  open  by  a  continuance  of  the  punching.  I 
don't  think  the  Arabs  are  intentionally  cruel ;  it  is  difficult  to 
make  them  understand  the  sufferings  of  animals  when  they  them- 
selves are  quite  indifferent  to  pain  and  discomfort. 

As  we  approached  Assouan  the  sandstone  formation  disap- 
peared and  granite  came  into  view.  Along  this  part  of  the  river 
there  were  numerous  boulders  in  the  stream  ;  they  change  their 
places  through  the  action  of  the  current  and  make  navigation 
somewhat  dangerous.  A  steamer  that  left  Cairo  after  we  did, 
struck  one  of  these  boulders  while  going  at  full  speed  and  was  of 
no  use  as  a  steamboat  after  that.  Passengers,  crew,  and  baggage 
were  saved,  but  the  boat  went  to  what  Mr.  Mantalini  would  call 
the  "  demnition  bow-wows." 

We  made  several  windings  with  alternate  views  of  fertile 
ground  and  sandy  desert,  rocky  hills  and  huge  boulders,  and  at 
last  on  a  rounded  summit  there  appeared  a  dome  that  overlooked 
Assouan.  We  made  a  sharp  bend  to  the  left  passing  more 
boulders  and  with  the  island  of  Elephantine  on  our  right  swung 
in  towards  the  town  and  m.ade  fast  to  the  bank. 

The  river  seemed  to  end  here  ;  we  were  enclosed  in  an  amphi- 
theatre variously  composed  of  sand,  granite,  town,  and  verdure, 
from  which  there  appeared  to  be  no  egress  save  by  the  route 
through  which  we  had  advanced.  Steam  was  blown  off  and  the 
upward  journey  of  our  boat  was  ended. 


NUBIAN    BELLES    AND    BEAUX. 


609 


As  we  went  on  shore  we  met  a  crowd  of  Arabs  and  Nubians 
with  ostrich  feathers,  Nubian  dresses,  old  coins,  arrows,  silver 
ornaments,  battle  axes  and  the  like  for  sale.  The  Arabs  were 
like  those  we  had  seen  down  the  river,  but  the  Nubians  were  an- 
other lot.     Their  black  skins  were  covered  with  scanty  clothing, 


A   NUBIAN    BELLE. 


and  their  woolly  hair  was  done  into  small  ringlets  about  the  size 
of  lead  pencils  and  plentifully  saturated  with  grease.  To  trade 
with  them  required  as  much  bargaining  as  with  the  Arabs,  and 
sometimes  a  little  more. 

They  had  high  prices  for  their  ostrich  feathers,  but  we  grad- 
ually brought  them  down.     One  article  dealt  in  here  was  the 


6io 


BARGAINS    WITH    THE    NATIVES. 


whip  of  hippopotamus  hide  which  goes  by  the  name  of  cojtrbash. 
Some  of  the  passengers  bought  each  a  dozen  or  more  ;  I  con- 
tented myself  with  one  whip  and  a  cane  as  I  did  not  wish  to  af- 
fect the  market.  It  was  late  when  we  arrived  so  that  there  was 
only  time  to  take  a  stroll  through  the  bazaars  which  contained 
nothing  of  special  importance, 

Assouan  is  a  town  of  about  four  thousand  inhabitants,  and  oc- 
cupies the  site  of  the  ancient  Sy- 
ene.  At  certain  seasons  it  presents 
many  curious  features  as  the  trade 
from  Nubia  centres  there  and  the 
product  of  the  Soudan  and  Central 
Africa  which  has  been  sent  by 
camels  around  the  cataract  is  re- 
loaded here.  Ostrich  feathers, 
ivory,  gum  arable,  lion  and  leopard 
skins  and  the  like  are  the  chief 
articles  from  those  countries,  and 
may  sometimes  be  seen  at  Assouan 
in  considerable  quantities. 

In  front  of  Assouan  and  in  the 
middle  of  the  river  is  Elephantine 
Island,  so  named  probably,  because 
no  elephant  was  ever  seen  there. 
We  went  there  in  a  small  boat 
rather  rickety  and  leaky  in  its  char- 
acter, and  which  stuck  in  the  mud 
at  twenty  feet  or  more  from  the 
land.  The  island  has  been  famous 
through  many  hundred  years,  and 
once  contained  a  city  of  considera- 
ble importance.  We  visited  the  ruins  of  this  city  and  also  of  a 
temple  which  was  destroyed  about  fifty  years  ago  to  furnish  stone 
for  the  construction  of  some  modern  buildings  in  Assouan. 

The  island  has  a  fertile  appearance  and  is  kept  in  a  luxuriant 
condition  by  several  sakkiehs  which  are  worked  not  by  men  as 
on  the  lower  Nile  but  by  oxen.  A  pair  of  oxen  turn  a  wheel  by 
which  a  quantity  of  buckets  are  made  to  lift  water  from  the 


A   NUBIAN    LADY. 


A    FIG-LEAF    COSTUME.  6l  I 

river.  We  visited  one  of  these  sakkiehs,  but  tiie  driver  did  not 
greet  us  kindly  as  his  team  took  fright  at  our  coming  and  nearly 
wrecked  the  machine  before  he  could  stop  and  pacify  them. 

The  inhabitants  of  the  island  are  all  Nubians,  and  as  we  landed 
they  flocked  down  to  meet  us.  They  offered  for  sale  old  coins, 
agates,  spears,  arrows,  and  Nubian  dresses,  but  they  did  not  drive 
a  lively  trade.  The  Nubian  dress  is  not  an  extensive  affair  ;  one 
of  the  passengers  bought  one  and  put  it  in  his  coat  pocket,  and 
several  were  offered  to  me  that  weighed  only  a  few  ounces  each. 
They  were  the  costumes  of  ladies,  not  of  men,  and  consisted  of 
a  fringe  of  strips  of  leather  like  shoe  strings  attached  to  a  strap. 
This  strap  was  fastened  around  the  loins,  and  the  strings  hanging 
down  constituted  the  dress. 

This  custom  is  quite  unfit  for  the  climate  of  America ;  it  is 
better  for  Nubia  where  the  thermometer  ranges  high  during  the 
entire  year  and  rain  never  falls.  I  saw  several  young  ladies 
dressed  in  these  airy  garments  and  they  did  not  appear  at  all  un- 
comfortable. 

If  a  lady  wants  to  get  herself  up  gorgeously,  she  adds  a  string 
of  beads  to  the  above  apparel  and  her  toilet  is  complete.  One 
dusky  maiden  of  about  sixteen  summers  took  off  her  string  of 
beads  and  proffered  them  for  sale.  I  gave  her  a  franc  for  the 
lot  and  she  then  removed  the  rest  of  her  apparel  and  proposed 
selling  it  for  two  francs. 

What  a  country, — where  a  feminine  wardrobe  in  the  height  of 
fashion  can  be  bought  for  three  francs  ! 


CHAPTER     XLVIII. 

CAMEL  RIDING.— ADVENTURES  AMONG  THE  NUBIANS. 

How  they  made  the  Royal  Coffins — Splitting  Blocks  of  Stones  with  Wooden 
Wedges — An  Ingenious  Device — A  Ride  on  a  Camel — A  Beast  indulging  in  Fa- 
miliarities— Lunching  on  Trowsers — Mounting  in  the  Saddle — Curious  Sensation 
— An  Interesting  Brute — A  Camel  Solo — Sitting  in  a  Dish — Camel  Riding  in  a 
Gymnastic  Point  of  View — Secondary  Effects — Nubian  Ferry-Boats — P.  T.  and 
his  Paint-Pot — Labors  of  an  Enthusiastic  American — Mr.  Tucker  on  his  Travels 
— "A  Human  Donkey" — Visiting  the  Cataract — Paying  Toll  to  a  Sheik — The  Pro- 
fessor and  his  Camel — Crocodiles  of  the  Nile — Starting  back  to  Cairo. 


WE  arranged  to  go  around  the  cataract  and  visit  the  Island 
of  Philae  the  day  after  our  arrival  at  Assouan.  On  our 
way  we  took  in  the  granite  quarries,  where  for  thousands  of  years 
blocks  of  stone  were  taken  out  for  various  building  purposes  and 
for  making  those  enormous  sarcophagi  used  in  so  many  Egyptian 
tombs.  The  stone  is  of  the  red  character  known  as  syenite  and 
admits  of  a  high  polish.  In  one  of  the  quarries  there  is  an  ob- 
elisk not  quite  detached,  which  would  have  been  ninety-five  feet 
high  and  eleven  feet  broad  at  the  base.  Why  it  was  abandoned 
and  under  what  king  it  was  begun  are  not  known. 

The  quarries  are  interesting  from  the  fact  that  they  show  the 
ancient  method  of  removing  stone.  Holes  were  cut  to  receive 
wooden  wedges,  which  were  driven  firmly  in  and  then  wet  with 
water  until  their  swelling  broke  away  the  stone  by  the  equal  and 
powerful  pressure  it  exerted.  The  same  plan  is  still  in  use  in 
some  parts  of  India;    the  quarries  at  Jerusalem  whence   was 

(612) 


THE    RIDE    TO    PHIL^. 


613 


taken  the  stone  for  building  Solomon's  temple  show  similar  marks 
of  the  wedge. 

We  were  offered  the  choice  of  camels  or  donkeys  for  the  ride 
to  Philse  and  back,  and  for  the  novelty  of  the  thing  I  selected  a 
camel.  I  went  out  early  in  the  morning  before  any  other  pas- 
senger was  stirring,  and  examined  the  beasts  with  the  eye  of  a 
connoisseur.  They  were  all  lying  down  and  chewing  the  cud  of 
content  or  some  other  kind  of  grass,  and  I  endeavored  to  get 
on  friendly  terms  with  them.  I  patted  one  on  the  head  and 
he  resented  the  famil- 
iarity by  endeavoring 
to  bite  a  section  from 
the  seat  of  my  trow- 
sers. 

This  kind  of  per- 
formance was  not  cal- 
culated to  secure  my 
friendship  and  I  moved 
on  to  another  which 
the  boy  in  charge  in- 
sisted was  tayb  kateer 
(very  good).  He  did 
not  try  to  bite  and  as 
he  was  of  goodly  size 
I  chose  him.  Then 
I  proceeded  to  mount 
and  took  my  seat  in 
the  saddle  which  had  a  strong  resemblance  to  a  wood-sawyer's 
"  horse"  with  a  blanket  over  it.     Now  was  the  critical  moment. 

I  grasped  firmly  the  pommel  of  the  saddle  and  also  the  can- 
tie  ;  as  I  did  so,  the  boy  pulled  the  camel's  halter  and  uttered 
something  like  "  Hey  da  !  Hey  da  !" 

The  camel  lifted  his  shoulders  and  came  up  to  his  knees; 
then  he  brought  up  his  hind  quarters  to  the  full  height  of  the  legs 
there,  and  finally  he  arose  from  his  knees  to  his  fore  feet.  The 
motion,  so  far  as  I  was  concerned,  was  a  surge  backward,  then  a 
surge  forward,  and  finally  a  backward  surge  that  subsided  into  a 
level. 


AN   AFFECTIONATE   BEAST. 


6l4  LESSONS    IN    CAMEL-RIDING. 

Here  is  the  formula :  Half  the  fore-legs,  then  all  the  hind- 
legs,  then  half  the  fore-legs.  From  a  level  you  are  pitched  back- 
ward so  that  you  could  easily  fall  on  your  shoulders  ;  an  instant 
after,  you  find  yourself  inclined  forward,  and  the  next  instant 
you  are  on  the  backward  lean  again,  and  subside  into  a  level.  I 
held  on  firmly,  or  I  should  have  come  to  grief.  I  fancy  the  camel 
boys  who  stood  around  had  several  laughs  at  my  precautions  to 
prevent  falling. 

The  camel  kneels  in  the  reverse  of  the  motions  of  rising,  i.  e., 
half  the  fore-legs,  all  the  hind-legs,  and  then  half  the  fore-legs. 
When  he  is  lying  down  his  back  is  easily  accessible  for  loading 
or  mounting,  but  when  he  is  up  in  the  air  he  is  a  long  way  off. 

I  selected  one  of  the  largest  beasts  on  purpose  to  know  the 
sensation  of  being  elevated.  I  expected  to  have  a  sense  of  in- 
security and  possibly  of  giddiness,  but  on  the  contrary  experi- 
enced nothing  of  the  kind. 

On  the  score  of  beauty  the  camel  has  no  reason  to  be  proud. 
His  neck  and  head  are  ill-shaped  and  suggest  an  overgrown  tur- 
key ;  his  feet  move  awkwardly  and  with  an  appearance  of  gout, 
rheumatism,  and  spring-halt  ;  his  skin  looks  like  an  old  boot  that 
has  been  exposed  to  wind  and  rain  for  half  a  year  ;  and  his  shape 
generally  is  as  beautiful  as  that  of  a  gnarly  apple.  My  camel  had 
a  grotesquely  colored  skin  ;  he  had  hair  in  spots  and  spots  with- 
out hair,  and  what  he  had  was  of  the  shade  of  a  very  old  buf- 
falo robe.  He  had  a  sort  of  wool  on  his  neck,  but  it  was  rather 
bunchy  and  looked  as  if  his  brother  camels  had  browsed  upon 
it  ;  and  his  under-lip  hung  down  like  that  of  a  boy  who  is  about 
to  whimper  in  expectation  of  a  flogging. 

When  I  mounted  him,  he  arched  his  neck  around  like  a  snake 
and  brought  his  head  quite  near  mine,  and  at  the  same  time  be- 
gan a  noise  that  was  a  combination  of  screaming,  bellowing,  and 
groaning.  He  kept  this  up  about  half  the  time  I  was  on  his 
back,  and  altogether  he  made  the  journey  a  musical  one. 

The  regular  saddle  for  riding  a  camel  is  a  sort  of  dish,  in  which 
you  sit  with  your  legs  crossed  over  the  animal's  neck  or  hanging 
down  at  will.  You  can  have  stirrups  if  you  like,  as  a  rest  for 
the  feet,  and  for  a  long  journey  the  best  plan  is  to  sling  a  pair  of 
well-filled  saddle-bags  or  a  couple  of  boxes  over  a  common  pack 


CAMEL    RIDING    AND    ITS    EFFECTS. 


615 


imagina-  _- 


saddle,  and  arrange  them  in  such  a  way  that  they  form  a  level 
surface  about  six  feet  from  side  to  side.  Cover  this  with  blan- 
kets, shawls,  and  a  mattress,  and  roll  up  the  sheets  and  pillow 
of  your  bed,  and  strap  them  to  the  back  of  the  saddle  so  as  to 
form  a  comfortable  rest.  Fasten  a  pair  of  stirrups  to  the  saddle- 
bow and  have  everything  well  strapped  and  corded  so  as  to  pre- 
vent slipping.  With  this  arrangement  you  can  lean,  lie  down, 
sit  sideways  or  cross-legged,  or  with  your  feet  in  the  stirrups ; 
and  if  you  want  to  be  luxurious,  you  can  fasten  a  huge  umbrella 
so  as  to  shade  you  from  the  sun.  A  suggestion  of  my  own  is 
that  you  add  a  soda 
fountain,  a  billiard  ta- 
ble, and  a  fish-pond,  and 
also  a  light  carriage  for 
driving  around  your 
platform.  Other  com- 
forts would  doubtless 
occur  to  the 
tive  reader. 

There  is  a  peculiar  £= 
rocking  motion  to  the 
camel,  and  the  expe- 
rienced rider  moves  his 
body  backwards  and 
forwards,  bending  at 
the  hips,  at  each  step 
of  the  beast. 

The  night  after  my  camel  ride,  I  dreamed  that  I  had  a  backbone 
of  glass,  and  could  not  move  without  breaking  in  two ;  and 
when  I  got  up  in  the  morning  it  seemed  as  if  I  was  all  back- 
bone and  that  an  iron  rod  had  been  passed  through  it  for  pur- 
poses of  rigidity.  I  went  around  rather  pompously  for  all  that 
day,  and  I  couldn't  have  made  a  bow  if  I  had  been  in  front  of 
the  king  of  the  Cannibal  Islands  and  threatened  with  instant 
death  for  any  appearance  of  incivility.  I  dropped  my  cane  while 
walking  on  shore  and  had  to  hire  an  Arab  to  pick  it  up,  and  as 
for  putting  on  my  boots  it  was  as  great  an  effort  as  to  turn  a 
somersault  in  a  peck  measure. 


LUXURIES   OF  CAMEL   RIDING. 


6l6  STIFF    AS    A    RAMROD, 

My  camel  was  an  ordinary  baggage  beast,  and  the  saddle  was 
such  as  they  use  for  transporting  freight  around  the  cataract. 
The  two  round  sticks  that  run  from  pommel  to  cantle  were  pain- 
fully perceptible  beneath  the  blanket  that  hid  them,  and  the  rub- 
bing, rocking  motion  over  them  made  a  couple  of  abrasions  of 
the  skin  as  large  as  a  soda  cracker. 

The  result  of  my  camel  riding  was  to  teach  a  great  deal  of 
dignity,  and  to  cause  me  to  sit  as  little  as  possible  in  the  pres- 
ence of  my  elders  or  of  any  body  else.  What  with  stiffness  and 
soreness  I  was  not  agile  in  my  movements,  and  it  took  as  long 
for  me  to  sit  down  or  rise  from  a  seat,  and  was  about  as  labori- 
ous, as  to  lay  the  corner-stone  of  an  eight-story  building. 

From  Assouan  to  the  quarries  the  scenery  was  wild  and  strik- 
ing, especially  so  at  the  point  where  we  caught  sight  of  the  river 
and  had  Philae  in  the  midst  of  the  Nile  as  the  centre  of 
the  picture.  We  had  at  one  view  the  desert,  black  rocks  and 
white  sand,  green  trees,  a  flowing  river,  and  the  beautiful  island 
with  its  coronet  of  temples.  Under  the  tall  trees  on  the  river 
bank,  there  was  a  crowd  of  Arabs  and  Nubians,  waiting  for  us  to 
dismount,  and  beyond  them  lay  the  boats  which  were  to  ferry  us 
over.  The  scene  was  unlike  that  of  any  other  part  of  the  Nile 
that  we  had  yet  encountered,  and  we  readily  realized  that  we  had 
passed  the  frontier  of  Egypt  and  had  entered  Nubia, 

Leaving  my  camel  in  the  hands  of  his  driver — a  scantily- 
dressed  boy  of  Nubian  origin, — I  entered  the  boat  and  waited 
till  the  rest  of  the  party  were  on  board.  Half  a  dozen  merchants 
of  ostrich  feathers  and  ornaments  of  silver  were  trying  to  strike 
up  bargains,  but  did  not  create  much  business.  In  the  river  some 
Nubian  urchins  were  sitting  astride  of  logs  and  paddling  about, 
and  they  showed  great  dexterity  in  balancing  themselves.  These 
logs  are  generally  a  foot  in  diameter  and  six  or  eight  feet  long, 
and  you  can  see  them  lying  around  on  the  banks  ;  they  appear 
to  be  common  property  for  use  as  ferry  boats,  but  whether  they 
are  supplied  by  government  I  am  unable  to  say,  A  native  comes 
to  the  Nile  and  wishes  to  cross  ;  he  removes  his  clothing  and 
makes  it  into  a  bundle  that  he  places  on  the  top  of  his  head,  and 
thus  prepared  he  takes  a  log,  strides  it,  plunges  into  the  river 
and  paddles  over.     On  the  other  side  he  draws  the  log  well  on 


THE    VEILED    SHRINE    OF    ISIS. 


617 


the  land,  and  as  soon  as  his  body  is  dry  he  dons  his  clothing  and 
moves  on.  Sometimes  and  generally  he  does  not  happen  to  have 
any  clothing,  and  in  this  event  he  is  saved  a  great  deal  of  trouble. 

Philae  has  always  excited  the  admiration  of  travellers,  many  of 
whom  have  characterized  it  as  the  most  lovely  spot  they  ever 
beheld.  To  the  ancient  Egyptian  it  was  the  most  sacred  place 
on  earth.  It  was  the  resting-place 
of  his  god  of  gods,  the  all-powerful 
Osiris,  who  was  identified  with  the 
annual  overflow  of  the  Nile,  and  the 
consequent  fertility  of  the  land. 
Hence  arose  the  fable  that  his  body 
was  deposited  in  the  cataract,  whence 
he  arose  each  year  to  enrich  the 
earth. 

Isis  was  the  sister  and  wife  of  Osi- 
ris. On  the  monuments  she  is  vari- 
ously styled  the  "  Mistress  of  Heaven," 
the  "  Regent  of  the  Gods,"  the  "  Eye 
of  the  Sun."  A  veil  always  hung 
before  her  shrine,  which,  said  the 
well  known  inscription,  "  None  among 
mortals  have  ever  lifted  up."  Some- 
times she  represented  the  land  of 
Egypt,  just  as  Osiris  did  its  fertiliz- 
ing river,  the  Nile. 

Such  were  the  deities  to  whose 
mysterious  worship,  Philae,  the  Sacred 
Island,  was  solemnly  dedicated. 

The  temple  was  beautifully  situ- 
ated, as  it  covered  a  considerable  part  of  the  Island,  and 
must  have  appeared  in  the  days  of  its  glory  very  much  as 
though  it  rose  out  of  the  water.  It  is  comparatively  mod- 
ern, as  the  dates  upon  it  do  not  go  back  beyond  the  XXXth 
Dynasty — about  four  hundred  years  B.  C.  The  building  was 
very  irregular,  and  the  indications  are  that  it  was  the  work  of 
several  architects  at  different  periods.  The  propylon  towers 
are  massive,  and  rise  to  a  height  of  nearly  sixty  feet  above  their 
base,  affording  a  fine  view  of  the  island  and  its  surroundings. 


EGYITIAN   GOD   OSIRIS. 


6i8 


A    BEAUTIFUL    ISLE. 


The  colors  on  the  walls  and  towers  are  wonderfully  preserved, 
— better  than  in  most  of  the  Egyptian  temples, — and  they  pre- 
sent a  beautiful  effect. 

The  sky  was  clear  and  the  air  soft  and  balmy ;  a  slight  breeze 
shook  the  leaves  of  the  trees  and  roughened  the  water  of  the 
river.  To  the  north  were  the  black  rocks  that  marked  the  locality 
of  the  cataract,  while  to  the  south  the  Nile  made  a  short  bend 
among  the  Nubian  hills  and  was  speedily  lost  to  view. 

There  is  a  sentimental  poem  on  the  "  Long  Ago  "  by  an  Ameri- 
can author,  which  contains  the  following  stanza : — 

"  There's  a  musical  isle  up  the  river  Time, 
Where  the  softest  of  airs  are  playing; 
There's  a  cloudless  sky  and  a  tropical  clime, 
And  a  song  as  sweet  as  the  vesper  chime, 
And  the  tunes  with  the  roses  are  straying." 

Many  persons  think  the  island  of 
Philae  was  in  the  writer's  mind  when 
he  penned  this  verse.  It  may  have 
been,  and  at  all  events  it  is  pretty  and 
poetical  enough  for  the  uses  of  any- 
body who  ever  ventured  upon  verse- 
making.  If  I  wanted  to  cure  anybody 
of  the  poetic  mania  Philae  would  be  the 
last  place  to  which  I  should  send  him. 

There  are  inscribed  on  the  temple, 
chiefly  on  the  pylon  towers,  the  names 
of  many  persons  who  have  visited  the 
place  within  the  past  two  hundred  years. 
On  the  side  of  one  of  the  doorways  is  an 
inscription  in  French,  announcing  that 
the  army  of  Desaix  reached  the  island 
of  Philae,  at  the  time  of  the  occupation 
of  Egypt  by  the  French  under  Bona- 
parte. The  inscription  remained  un- 
touched until  1848,  when  some  English 
visitors  effaced  the  words  Buonaparte 
and  Arinee  Frangaise.  An  enthusiastic 
Frenchman,  who  had  been  up  the  river 


EGYPTIAN    GODDESS    ISIS. 


A    HUMAN    DONKEY.  621 

to  the  second  cataract,  happened  to  visit  the  island  on  his  return 
and  found  that  the  mutilation  had  occurred  during  his  absence. 
He  procured  a  pot  of  paint,  restored  the  names  and  wrote  beneath 
the  inscription  :  "  Une  page  d'histotre  ne  s  efface  pas!' 

One  of  the  most  enterprising  of  modern  travellers — so  far  as 
recording  the  fact  of  his  visit  is  concerned — is  a  somebody  from 
New  York.  He  came  here  in  1870  and  travelled,  literally,  not 
figuratively,  with  a  paint  pot  and  brush  in  his  hand.  On  the 
pyramids,  on  the  tombs  at  Sakkarah,  on  the  walls  of  the  temple 
at  Karnak,  at  Edfou,  Esneh,  in  fact  everywhere  along  the  Nile 
I  saw  his  initials,  "  P.  T.,  N.  Y.,  1870"  I  was  told  that  his  full 
name  is  Tucker ;  I  hope  it  is  at  any  rate,  as  it  is  not  proper  that 
such  a  genius  should  rest  in  obscurity.  He  smeared  those  initials 
where  they  were  sure  to  be  seen,  and  was  not  at  all  particular  if 
he  defaced  a  fine  mural  painting  or  sculpture  by  so  doing.  In 
the  temple  at  Karnak,  for  example,  he  painted  them  in  such  a 
way  as  to  deface  a  mural  sculpture,  and  he  did  likewise  at  other 
places.  If  he  could  come  here  again,  and  under  another  name 
accompany  a  party  like  ours  up  the  Nile,  he  would  no  doubt 
listen  with  pleasure  to  the  compliments  passed  upon  him. 

Nearly  everybody  called  him  a  first-class  ass,  an  idiot,  a  fool  ; 
and  some  prefixed  an  adjective  of  a  participial  character  to  the 
word  ;  and  I  heard  several  persons  wish  to  wring  his  neck.  I 
endeavored  to  reprove  them,  but  it  was  of  no  use  ;  and  lest  he 
should  go  down  to  the  obscurity  that  he  evidently  dreaded,  I  em- 
brace this  opportunity  to  make  known  his  name  and  valorous 
deeds. 

An  Englishman  said  to  me  one  day  while  looking  at  the  above 
inscription,  "  We  have  a  good  many  human  donkeys  in  England, 
but  I  think  your  countryman  who  did  that  is  the  grandest  ass  in 
the  world."  My  heart  was  so  full  just  then  that  I  could  not  rush 
to  my  compatriot's  defence,  and  I  fear  that  my  British  friend  be- 
lieved I  shared  his  opinion. 

From  the  island  we  went  to  see  the  cataract,  which  is  nothing 
more  than  a  succession  of  rapids.  In  the  time  of  the  highest 
flood  boats  can  ascend  the  cataract  with  the  aid  of  a  strong 
wind  by  their  sails  alone,  but  in  ordinary  stages  they  must  be 
taken  up  by  means  of  tow-ropes.     From  forty  to  sixty  men  are 


622  CROCODILES    AND    HIPPOPOTAMI. 

required,  and  the  passage  through  the  five  miles  of  distance  will 
take  a  whole  day.  The  scene  is  quite  picturesque  and  full  of 
animation,  especially  when  the  rope  brealcs  and  lets  the  boat 
back  over  a  distance  that  has  been  gained  with  much  toil. 

There  is  a  sheik  who  has  entire  control  of  the  passage  of  the 
cataract,  and  the  contract  must  be  made  with  him.  It  costs 
from  ten  to  fifteen  pounds  to  take  a  boat  up  from  Assouan  to 
Mahatta,  a  small  village  at  the  head  of  the  falls,  and  sometimes 
the  work  will  take  three  or  four  days. 

At  Mahatta  we  found  our  camels  and  donkeys,  and  returned 
by  the  bank  of  the  river  to  Assouan.  The  Professor  was  on  a 
camel  of  enormous  size — so  large  in  fact  that  I  suggested  the 
addition  of  a  pilot  house  and  steering  gear  to  keep  the  animal  in 
the  road.  We  passed  two  or  three  villages  where  the  natives 
offered  us  necklaces  and  polished  agates  for  sale,  and  a  few  old 
coins.  Skins  of  crocodiles  were  offered,  and  one  native  tried 
hard,  to  palm  off  a  lizard  on  us  as  a  young  crocodile. 

Crocodiles,  by  the  way,  are  quite  scarce  on  the  Nile  below  the 
First  Cataract.  We  saw  but  one  on  our  whole  voyage  ;  twenty 
years  ago  you  might  see  two  or  three  dozen  of  them  in  a  day. 
In  Nubia  they  are  abundant  enough,  and  further  up  the  Nile 
you  can  see  plenty  of  hippopotami.  Not  one  of  these  beasts 
exists  now  below  the  second  cataract,  though  less  than  sixty 
years  ago  one  was  killed  in  the  delta  below  Cairo. 

After  several  day's  stoppage  at  Assouan,  we  started  back  for 
Cairo,  All  steamboat  travellers  and  most  dahabeeah  parties  do 
not  go  beyond  Philse,  and  nearly  all  tourists  who  go  further,  end 
their  voyage  at  Wady  Haifa,  the  foot  of  the  Second  Cataract,  two 
hundred  and  forty  miles  beyond  Assouan. 

Above  Wady  Haifa  the  river  makes  a  wide  bend  into  Dou- 
goula ;  parties  intending  to  proceed  to  Khartoum,  at  the  junc- 
tion of  the  Blue  and  White  Nile,  generally  leave  the  river  at 
Korosko,  a  hundred  miles  below  Wady  Haifa,  and  make  a  jour- 
ney of  eight  days  by  camel  across  the  desert  to  Aboo  Hamed, 
where  they  take  boats  again  on  the  river  and  save  going  around 
the  bend  After  passing  Khartoum  there  is  good  navigation  on 
the  Nile,  for  a  long  distance,  and  then — 

Well,  that  is  what  explorers  are  endeavoring  to  find  out. 


CHAPTER     XLIX. 


IN  THE  SLAVE  COUNTRY.— SIR  SAMUEL  W.  BAKER'S  EXPEDITION. 

The  Egyptian  Slave  Trade — How  carried  on — An  Army  of  Kidnappers — A  Slave 
King — Frightful  Scenes — Sir  Samuel  Baker's  Expedition — A  Shrewd  Move — 
Breech-loaders  as  Civilizing  Agents — A  Missionary  Outfit — Starting  for  the  Slave 
Country — Reluctant  AUies — The  "  Forty  Thieves" — Running  against  a  Snag — 
The  Sacred  Egyptian  Flower — The  Lotos-Eaters,  Who  were  They  ? — The'  New 
York  Lotophagi — The  Papyrus  or  Vegetable  Paper — Capturing  a  Cargo  of  Slaves 
— The  Plague  of  Flies— A  few  more  "likely  Niggers" — Marrying  by  Wholesale — 
A  Fight  with  the  Natives — The  result  of  the  Expedition. 

1HAVE  already  alluded  to  the  efforts  of  the  Khedive  to  put  an 
end  to  the  slave  trade  in  Central  Africa,  and  to  give  that  be- 
nighted part  of  the  world  some  of  the  advantages  of  civilization. 
Under  some  of  the  former  rulers  of  Egypt  the  slave  trade  had 
been  openly  encouraged,  while  under  others  it  was  restricted,  but 
not  very  forcibly.  In  1869  the  Khedive  determined  to  make  a 
formidable  effort  for  its  suppression.  At  that  time  the  reports 
from  Central  Africa  showed  that  the  trade  was  mainly  carried 
on  by  Egyptian  subjects,  most  of  them  merchants  of  Khartourh. 
They  were  working  on  an  extensive  scale.  They  had  organized 
companies  of  well  armed  brigands,  and  they  sent  out  regular  ex- 
peditions of  these  fellows  into  the  country  whence  the  slaves 
were  drawn.  Ostensibly  these  expeditions  were  for  trading  in 
ivory,  but  the  chief  and  frequently  the  sole  article  of  commerce 
sought  was  of  a  color  quite  the  reverse  of  ivory.  To  such  an 
extent  was  the  business  carried  that  large  tracts  of  country  were 
rendered  almost  desolate ;  whole  villages  were  burned  and  their 

(623) 


624  STEALING    HUMAN    BEINGS. 

inhabitants  killed,  dispersed  or  captured,  and  sold  into  slavery, 
and  all  legitimate  business  seemed  to  be  at  an  end.  It  was  es- 
timated that  not  less  than  fifteen  thousand  subjects  of  the  Khe- 
dive were  employed  in  trading  in  human  flesh.  Nearly  the  whole 
of  the  Nile  basin  beyond  Khartoum  was  parcelled  out  among  the 
traders,  who  worked  together  for  the  common  good  and  con- 
ducted their  razzias  by  means  of  their  armed  followers. 

One  of  the  traders  claimed  jurisdiction  over  ninety  thousand 
square  miles  of  territory,  and  could  do  as  he  pleased  within  its 
borders.  The  estimate  of  the  number  of  slaves  annually  cap- 
tured and  sent  out  of  the  country  was  not  less  than  fifty  thou- 
sand. As  the  traders  could  penetrate  into  all  the  populous 
country  and  make  their  raids  at  will  there  was  great  insecurity 
of  life  and  property.  The  Khedive  determined  to  strike  a  blow 
for  the  suppression  of  this  infamous  business,  and  for  this  pur- 
pose an  expedition  was  organized  and  Sir  Samuel  White  Baker 
was  assigned  the  supreme  command  for  four  years  from  April 
ist,  1869. 

This  expedition  was  expected  to  subdue  to  the  Khedive's  au- 
thority the  countries  situated  to  the  south  of  Goudokoro  ;  to  sup- 
press the  slave  trade ;  to  introduce  a  system  of  commerce  ;  to 
open  to  navigation  the  great  lakes  of  the  equator  ;  and  to  estab- 
lish military  stations  and  commercial  depots  throughout  Central 
Africa. 

Baker  was  given  absolute  control  of  the  men  under  him  and 
of  the  country  designated  in  the  Khedive's  decree.  He  had  even 
the  power  of  life  and  death,  and  from  his  decisions  there  was  no 
appeal. 

It  was  decided  that  one  of  the  first  steps  necessary  in  suppres- 
sing the  slave  trade  was  to  "  annex"  the  country  of  the  Nile  basin 
to  Egypt.  This  would  make  it  subject  to  Egyptian  laws  and 
would  tend  to  the  establishment  of  commerce  more  surely  than 
if  the  region  should  remain  independent  and  uncivilized.  The 
inhabitants  could  learn  to  read  and  write,  and  could  buy  whiskey 
and  tobacco  ;  they  could  get  drunk  and  steal,  and  otherwise  be 
honored  citizens,  as  if  they  were  subjects  of  the  Queen  of  Eng- 
land or  the  President  of  the  United  States.  Instead  of  going 
about  in  nakedness  they  would  have  strings  of  beads  to  wear 


A    MISSIONARY    OUTFIT.  625 

around  their  necks,  and  if  prosperous  and  obedient  they  might 
hope  for  rings  on  their  fingers,  and  in  time  for  bells  on  their  toes. 
Christianity  and  contagious  disease?  would  be  introduced ;  they 
would  have  debating  societies,  spelling  matches,  and  caucusses, 
and  all  kindred  institutions  of  a  free  people,  and  they  might 
look  forward  to  that  millennial  period  when  city  halls  and  court- 
houses, and  prisons,  and  jails,  would  rise  in  their  midst  to  enrich 
the  Ethiopian  Tweeds  and  Sweeneys  of  that  happy  time.  The 
heathen  should  no  longer  live  in  blindness  and  bow  down  to  - 
wood  and  stone.  He  should  go  to  a  fine  church  on  Fifth  avenue, 
listen  to  a  popular  preacher,  and  sing  his  hosannas  by  proxy 
through  the  mouths  of  a  carefully  selected  and  liberally  paid  quar- 
tette. It  was  expected  that  the  natives  would  rush  anxiously 
forward  to  listen  to  the  proclamation  of  annexation. 

To  aid  them  to  come  to  a  favorable  decision  Sir  Samuel  was 
provided  with  a  suitable  number  of  breech-loading  rifles  with 
plenty  of  fixed  ammunition,  and  with  about  sixteen  hundred  men 
to  handle  the  rifles  properly.  This  military  force  included  two 
hundred  irregular  cavalry  and  two  batteries.  With  such  a  mis- 
sionary outfit  as  this  it  was  thought  there  would  be  no  trouble  in 
convincing  the  untutored  savages  that  it  was  a  good  thing  to  be 
annexed  and  civilized.  The  arms  and  equipments  were  carefully 
selected,  and  for  the  further  purpose  of  convincing  the  natives 
three  steamboats — built  in  sections  so  that  they  could  be  carried 
on  camels — were  taken  along.  Then  there  was  a  large  supply  of 
English  cloth  of  different  kinds,  all  sorts  of  tools  and  toys,  musi- 
cal boxes,  cheap  watches,  and  odds  and  ends  of  different  kinds 
enough  to  stock  a  variety  store  at  Christmas  time. 

After  many  delays  and  difficulties  the  expedition  was  off  for 
Khartoum  where  it  arrived  in  course  of  time.  The  official  and 
other  residents  of  Khartoum  were  not  over  friendly  to  the  ex- 
pedition, as  the  most  of  them  had  an  interest  in  the  slave  trade, 
directly  or  otherwise,  and  some  of  the  principal  operators  were 
on  intimate  terms  with  the  governor.  The  latter  had  done  noth- 
ing toward  getting  ready  the  vessels  necessary  for  the  expedi- 
tion, but  he  went  to  work  soon  after  Baker's  arrival  and  displayed 
considerable  activity.  After  a  while  the  expedition  moved  on 
with  the  two  steamers  which  had  been  put  together,  and  with  a 
35 


626  SIR    SAMUEL    BAKER    IN    DIFFICULTIES. 

fleet  of  thirty-one  sailing  vessels.  Altogether  the  command  of 
Baker  Pasha  was  somewhat  more  than  a  thousand  men,  the  orig- 
inal number  having  been  diminished  by  sickness,  death,  and  de- 
sertion. 

He  had  a  special  corps  of  forty-six  men  selected  as  a  body 
guard  and  commanded  by  an  Egyptian  lieutenant-colonel.  As 
the  most  of  them  were  originally  convicts  sent  from  Cairo  to  the 
Soudan  the  contingent  was  known  as  the  "  Forty  Thieves." 
They  were  a  brave  lot  of  rascals  and  did  most  excellent  servdce. 

In  this  army  of  enterprise  commanded  by  Baker  Pasha,  it  did 
not  appear  necessary  that  the  men  that  went  out  for  soldiers 
should  be  of  the  best  quality.  Anything  will  do  as  food  for 
powder,  and  when  they  prove  as  courageous  as  did  the  "  Forty 
Thieves,"  the  wisdom  of  the  selection  is  to  be  commended.' 

Baker  proceeded  up  the  Nile  from  Khartoum  as  fast  as  the 
winds  and  steam  could  carry  him,  and  had  no  trouble  for  some 
days.  His  difficulties  began  when  he  reached  a  point  where  the 
river  was  blocked  with  a  mass  of  reeds  and  vegetable  matter 
through  which  the  water  managed  to  soak.  But  the  boats  could 
not  find  any  passage  and  the  expedition  was  compelled  to  halt. 

At  length  thirty  vessels  were  ordered  to  form  in  line  single 
file,  to  cut  a  canal  through  the  high  water  grass,  but  the  opera- 
tion was  very  fatiguing  to  the  men  and  put  a  goodly  number  of 
them  on  the  sick  list.  They  made  about  a  mile  and  a  half  the 
first  day,  and  on  the  next  the  whole  fleet  was  pushed  forward 
about  five  miles,  the  mass  of  vegetation  having  diminished  in 
quantity.  But  on  subsequent  days  they  were  not  so  fortunate, 
and  finally  were  forced  to  stop  altogether.  The  mass  of  vegeta- 
ble matter  steadily  increased,  and  finding  the  passage  impossible 
Baker  gave  the  order  to  return. 

Among  the  plants  that  formed  part  of  this  vegetable  mass  was 
the  lotos,  the  flower  that  was  considered  sacred  among  the  an- 
cient Egyptians,  and  was  cultivated  in  the  little  ponds  at  the 
sides  of  their  temples.  It  is  a  species  of  water  lily.  Eleven  va- 
rieties of  the  lotos  are  known  ;  but  only  one  is  now  found  in 
lower  Egypt,  the  leaves  and  flowers  of  which  float  upon  the  water. 
From  representations  on  the  walls  of  temples  and  tombs  it  is 
supposed  that  the  sacred  flower  of  ancient  Egypt  generally  grew 


SACRED  LOTOS  OF  THE  EGYPTIANS. 


4 

CAPTURING  A  CARGO  OF  SLAVES.  629 

in  the  edge  of  the  water  or  in  a  moist  place.  The  leaves  and 
flowers  were  upheld  above  the  surface  by  strong  stalks.  The 
pods  and  seeds  of  the  lotos  are  eaten  by  the  natives  in  Central 
Africa,  and  sometimes  form  their  only  article  of  food. 

The  Lotos-eaters,  or  Lotophagi,  were  described  by  Herodotus, 
who  was  vainly  urged  to  eat  of  the  plant.  It  was  supposed  that 
one  who  had  eaten  of  the  lotos  would  lose  all  desire  to  return  to 
his  native  land,  and  be  content  to  pass  the  rest  of  his  days  'm 
dreamy  rest.  Tennyson  has  made  use  of  this  idea  in  one  of  his 
most  charming  poems. 

A  club  known  as  the  Lotos  was  formed  in  New  York  some 
years  ago,  and  is  yet  in  successful  operation.  But  the  digestive 
organs  of  its  members  and  their  guests  are  exercised  upon  beef- 
steak, potatoes,  and  kindred  edibles  much  oftener  than  upon  the 
African  plant.  In  fact,  I  have  never  yet  seen  the  article  on  their 
menu. 

Further  up  the  Nile  its  banks  are  covered  with  a  dense  vege- 
tation which  includes  many  kinds  of  tropical  plants.  The  lotos 
rises  from  the  water's  edge,  and  close  beside  it  may  be  seen  the 
papyrus,  the  plant  whose  name  is  preserved  in  the  word  "  paper." 

As  the  expedition  went  back  the  channel  which  had  been  cut 
with  so  much  labor  was  found  to  be  freshly  choked  so  that  the 
return  movement  was  nearly  as  slow  as  the  advance. 

On  the  advance  up  the  river  the  governor  of  Fashooda,  a  sta- 
tion on  the  White  Nile,  had  warmly  commended  the  Khedive's 
plan  for  suppressing  the  slave  trade,  and  wished  Baker  the  best 
of  success.  On  the  latter's  unexpected  return  he  found  the  gov- 
ernor shipping  a  cargo  of  slaves  down  the  river,  and  that  several 
villages  in  the  vicinity  had  been  robbed  of  their  inhabitants  in 
order  that  the  governor  could  make  up  his  cargo.  Baker  cap- 
tured the  boat  containing  the  slaves  and  had  the  captives  brought 
out.  There  were  seventy-one  of  them  in  all,  and  an  examination 
of  the  shore  revealed  eighty-four  additional  slaves  guarded  by  the 
governor's  soldiers  ! 

The  governor  tried  to  explain  that  the  prisoners  were  held  as 
hostages  until  the  rest  of  the  people  should  pay  their  taxes.  But 
as  there  was  no  fixed  tax  in  the  country  the  whole  story  was 
rather  lacking  in  texture,  in  fact,  was  altogether  "  too  thin."    The 


'630 


ANTS,    RATS,    AND    FLIES. 


governor  was  somewhat  annoyed  at  having  been  caught,  and  his 
principal  consolation  was  that  slave  dealing  was  the  chief  busi- 
ness of  the  Soudan  country,  and  that  therefore  he  was  no  worse 
than  his  fellows. 

Baker  now  descended  the  Nile  to  the  mouth  of  the  Sabat 
river,  where  he  established  a  camp  on  a  piece  of  high  ground. 
A  garden  was  formed  and  planted,  and  in  a  short  time  a  dozen 
varieties  of  vegetables  were  in  rapid  growth.  Millions  of  white 
ants  appeared  and  created  great  havoc  among  the  stores  of  the 
expedition,  and  they  were  gallantly  assisted  by  the  rats  which 


MODERN    FGYPTIAN   GRISTMILL. 


abound  around  the  White  Nile.  Flies  were  very  troublesome,  and 
compelled  the  erection  of  dark  stables  for  the  horses,  and  even  in 
these  stables  it  was  necessary  to  make  smudges  of  burning  horse 
dung  to  expel  the  annoying  insects.  The  donkeys  suffered  like- 
wise, but  in  spite  of  the  flies  they  were  found  to  keep  their  con- 
dition best  in  the  open  air,  though  their  hair  fell  off  and  their 
skins  assumed  the  appearance  of  India  rubber.  After  a  time 
they  became  accustomed  to  the  situation  ;  with  all  their  persist- 
ence the  flies  were  unable  to  appeal  to  the  moral  nature  of  the 
beasts. 

Gristmills  and  sawmills  were  erected,  and  for  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  the  world  this  part  of  the  Nile  basin  resounded  to  the 


SMUGGLING    SLAVES.  63 1 

music  SO  familiar  to  tlie  valleys  of  the  Penobscot  and  Kennebec. 
A  small  machine  shop  was  opened,  and  there  was  much  activity  in 
the  preparations  for  the  next  campaign  to  the  south.  The  natives 
looked  on  wonderingly,  and  established  the  most  friendly  rela- 
tions with  the  expedition.  But  it  took  them  a  long  time  to  un- 
derstand why  the  government  should  send  an  armed  force  to 
break  up  the  slave  trade,  when  its  local  officials  were  more  or 
less  engaged  in  that  commerce.  The  untutored  savage  is  quick 
at  comprehending  anything  which  an  educated  white  man  could 
not  easily  get  through  his  head. 

One  day  a  sail-boat  was  discovered  descending  the  river.  It 
attempted  to  pass,  but  was  brought  to  land,  and  at  first  glance 
appeared  to  be  laden  with  corn.  The  captain  and  super-cargo 
protested  that  they  had  no  slaves  on  board.  An  examination 
was  made  resulting  in  the  discovery  of  a  hundred  and  fifty 
stowed  away  in  the  hold  like  sardines  in  a  can.  They  were 
brought  out — boys,  girls,  and  women — all  perfectly  naked  ;  their 
shackles  were  removed  and  the  captain  and  supercargo  were  put 
in  irons. 

Next  morning  Baker  gave  free  papers  to  the  negroes,  and  gave 
them  the  choice  of  returning  to  their  homes  or  making  them- 
selves useful  about  the  camp.  He  told  the  women  that  if  any 
of  them  wished  to  marry,  they  could  possibly  find  husbands 
among  his  soldiers. 

In  the  afternoon  the  officer  in  charge  of  the  negroes  came  to 
inform  Baker  that  all  the  women  wished  to  marry,  and  had 
already  selected  their  husbands.  There  was  some  difficulty 
about  arranging  the  details,  as  the  black  women  refused  to  marry 
the  brown  men  of  the  Egyptian  regiment.  They  didn't  want 
any  dirty  white  trash,  but  had  no  objection  to  such  soldiers  as 
had  the  good  fortune  to  be  negroes. 

Months  were  consumed  in  tedious  and  vexatious  delays  before 
the  expedition  arrived  at  Gondokoro.  Here  a  station  was  estab- 
lished, a  garden  was  planted,  and  the  natives  were  made  by  various 
means  to  understand  that  the  expedition  had  come  there  to  stay, 
and  occupy  the  country  in  the  interest  of  freedom. 

The  natives  were  hostile,  and  were  particularly  enraged  when 
told  that  the  country  was  to  be  annexed  to  Egypt.    On  the  26th 


632 


FIGHTING   THE    NATIVES. 


of  May  the  ceremony  was  performed  that  added  many  thousand 
miles  of  territory  to  the  dominions  of  the  Khedive. 

A  flagstaff  eighty  feet  high  had  been  erected.  The  whole  mil- 
itary force,  consisting  of  twelve  hundred  men  with  ten  pieces  of 
artillery,  was  marched  out  and  formed  in  a  square  around  the 
flagstaff.  The  official  proclamation  was  read,  and  as  the  last 
words  were  pronounced,  the  Ottoman  flag  was  run  up,  the  offi- 
cers saluted  with  their  swords,  the 
infantry  presented  arms,  and  the 
artillery  fired  a  salvo  which  woke 
the  echoes  of  Gondokoro  and  the 
surrounding  country.  But  the  sol- 
diers of  the  expedition  had  become 
discouraged,  and  the  mutinous  spir- 
it among  the  men  finally  broke  out 
in  the  shape  of  written  protests 
signed  by  all  the  officers,  except 
those  belonging  to  "The  Forty 
Thieves." 

These  protests  were  to  the  effect 
that  the  officers  and  soldiers  were 
weary  of  the  expedition,  and  wished 
to  return  to  Khartoum. 

Fights  with  the  natives  became 
of  almost  daily  occurrence,  and 
some  of  them  assumed  the  im- 
portance of  battles.  But  the  ar- 
rows and  spears  of  the  natives  and 
the  few  muskets  they  had  obtained 
from  the  traders,  were  no  match 
for  the  rifles  of  the  Egyptians, 
and  the  fights  invariably  resulted  in  the  defeat  of  the  savage. 
But  the  movements  of  the  expedition  were  retarded,  and  the 
little  camp  at  Gondokoro  was  kept  in  a  state  of  frequent 
alarm.  Though  the  rebellious  officers  were  silenced,  their  feel- 
ings were  unchanged,  and  they  did  not  rush  eagerly  into  the 
fight  when  the  bugle  called  to  arms. 

Still  Baker  persevered,   and  by  his  bravery  and  indomitable 


A   NUBIAN    WARRIOR. 


PAPYRUS  UF  THE  KGYPTIANS. 


PUTTING  DOWN  THE  SLAVE  TRADE.  635 

energy  the  expedition  was  kept  together.  The  sick  and  wounded 
were  sent  back  to  Khartoum,  and  the  command  was  soon  reduced 
to  less  than  five  hundred  men  of  all  ranks  and  occupations. 
Numerous  expeditions  were  sent  into  the  surrounding  country, 
to  the  consternation  of  the  natives,  who  were  astonished  at  the 
appearance  of  the  soldiers,  especially  as  they  were  accompanied 
by  music  from  the  bugles  of  "  The  Forty  Thieves  "  and  the  band 
of  the  Egyptian  regiment. 

At  the  expiration  of  his  term  of  service,  Baker  descended  the 
Nile  and  arrived  at  Cairo  in  August,  1873,  where  he  was  warmly 
received  by  the  Khedive  and  decorated  with  the  order  of  the 
"Medjidie." 

Colonel  Gordon,  whose  name  had  become  well  known  through 
his  connection  with  the  wars  in  China,  and  his  organization  of 
the  army  that  received  the  title  of  "  Ever  Victorious,"  was  ap- 
pointed, to  succeed  Baker  Pasha.  Late  in  1873  he  proceeded  to 
the  Soudan,  where  he  took  command  of  the  troops  which  had 
been  left  at  Khartoum  and  Gondokoro.  The  expedition  was  re- 
organized, and  in  1874  was  ready  to  proceed.  Fresh  soldiers 
were  sent  from  Cairo,  a  better  equipment  was  given  to  the  sol- 
diers, and  several  of  the  foreign  officers  in  the  Khedive's  service 
were  transferred  to  the  Soudan.  Arms,  ammunition,  goods,  pro- 
visions, and  all  needed  supplies  were  liberally  provided,  and  the 
work  of  exploration  and  the  suppression  of  the  slave  trade  was 
actively  pushed. 

While  I  was  in  Egypt  I  became  acquainted  with  two  of  the 
American  officers  who  were  to  accompany  Colonel  Gordon,  and 
they  departed  for  the  south  during  my  stay  at  Cairo.  They  were 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Long  and  Major  Campbell,  and  both  im- 
pressed me  as  able  and  efficient  officers  thoroughly  devoted  to 
their  duty.  As  I  write  they  are  still  in  Equatorial  Africa  ;  the 
work  of  the  expedition  was  expected  to  continue  for  three  years 
from  January,  1874,  and  is  therefore  far  from  complete. 

The  Khedive  shows  a  determination  to  put  an  end  to  the  bar- 
barous traffic  in  humanity  and  to  discover  the  sources  of  the  Nile, 
thus  setting  at  rest  a  question  which  has  vexed  the  scientists 
from  the  days  of  Herodotus  to  our  own.  He  has  followed  up  his 
policy  of  annexation  by  taking  the  rich  country  of  Darfoor  under 


636 


MORAL    INFLUENCE    OF    RIFLES. 


his  Standard  and  proclaiming  it  the  territory  of  Egypt.  Darfoor 
has  long  been  at  war  with  Egypt,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 
annexation  of  the  country  will  bring  a  lasting  peace  that  will 
tend  to  agricultural  and  commercial  development.  The  moral 
influence  of  breech-loaders  and  rifled  artillery  in  the  hands  of 
Gordon  and  his  energetic  assistants  is  actively  at  work,  and  the 
results  can  be  confidently  expected  at  no  distant  day.  The  whole 
of  Equatorial  Africa  will  come  under  the  sway  of  Egypt,  and 
the  old  kingdom  of  the  Pharaohs  will  assume  an  extent  never 
dreamed  of  in  the  days  of  Isis  and  Osiris. 


CHAPTER     L. 


SUNSET  IN  THE  ORIENT.— VOYAGING  DOWN  THE  NILE. 

An  Egyptian  Sunset — A  Gorgeous  Spectacle — The  Sky  that  bends  above  the  Nile 
— Singular  Atmospheric  Phenomena — A  Picture  for  an  Artist — Shadows  from 
History — Napoleon  and  the  Pyramids — Our  Voyage  back  to  Cairo — Scenes  by 
the  Way — "Cook's  Tourists" — An  Amusing  Sight — Night-Fall  on  the  Nile — A 
Flame  of  Rockets — "  What  does  it  Mean .'"' — The  Marriage  of  the  Khedive's  Son 
— Feminine  Disappointment — Jumping  Ashore — Aboard  of  Donkeys — Gustave's 
Somersault — Practical  Sympathy — In  the  Pasha's  Garden — A  Magnificent  Sight 
— The  Wedding  Pageant — Elbowing  an  Arab  Crowd — A  Pyrotechnic  Shower. 

THE  tenth  of  February  was  the  last  day  of  our  journey  on  the 
Nile.  Both  gladly  and  reluctantly  we  hailed  the  end. 
The  sun  went  down  according  to  his  usual  custom  and  at  the 
time  set  by  astronomers  for  him  to  do  so.  There  was  nothing 
remarkable  in  the  fact  that  sunset  occurred  at  the  close  of  the 
day,  but  there  was  something  remarkable  in  the  coloring  of  the 
sky,  and  in  the  lights  and  shadows  of  the  hour.  An  Egyptian 
sunset  is  about  the  finest  thing  of  the  kind  that  can  be  found 
anywhere,  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  poets  rave  about  it  and  artists 
make  long  pilgrimages  and  endure  many  hardships  in  order  to 
transfer  it  to  canvass.  I  have  seen  the  glorious  orb  of  day 
leave  the  world  "to  darkness  and  to  me"  in  many  lands  and 
climes  of  this  terrestial  ball — in  unsentimental  English  I  have 
seen  the  same  sun  set  in  many  places — but  I  have  never  found  it 
making  a  spectacle  more  gorgeous  than  the  Egyptian  one.  The 
Egyptian  morning  has  some  color,  but  not  much  ;  in  the  middle 
of  the  day  every  particle  of  tint  disappears  altogether,  and  the 
sky  is  perfectly  clear — a  sort  of  grayish  blue  in  which  there  is 
only  the  very  faintest  suggestion  of  cerulean.     An  hour  or  two 


638  A    SKY    FOR   A    PAINTER. 

before  sunset  a  close  observer  will  discover  faint  outlines  or 
ghosts  of  clouds — cirrus  and  cirro-cumulus — streaming  up  from 
the  western  half  of  the  horizon,  and  furtively  gaining  little  by- 
little  until  they  are  at  the  zenith.  At  first  these  clouds  are  color- 
less, but  as  they  grow  and  take  definite  shape,  and  the  minutes 
roll  on,  they  become  purple  and  scarlet,  and  crimson  and  golden, 
until  the  whole  western  heavens  from  north  to  south,  and  from 
south  back  to  north  again  seem  to  be  aglow  with  lurid  flames. 
The  sands  of  the  Desert  have  absorbed  during  the  middle  of  the 
day  all  the  effulgent  beams  of  the  sun  ;  now  they  are  giving  them 
back  in  all  their  prismatic  variety  and  painting  a  picture  of  rarest 
beauty.  The  colors  are  brightest  as  the  sun  drops  into  the 
waste  of  sand  in  the  west.  If  we  are  standing  on  the  Mokattam 
Hills  overlooking  Cairo  we  have  the  pyramids  of  Gizeh  between 
us  and  the  declining  sun  and  their  outlines  become  more  and 
more  distinct  as  the  day  wanes.  The  colors  linger  on  the  clouds 
but  gradually  they  fade  and  disappear  till  at  last  we  see  only  a 
bright  line  of  light  along  the  horizon.  This  in  turn  melts  away 
and  the  day  is  done. 

"  Soldiers,"  said  Napoleon,  as  he  formed  his  army  in  line  to  re- 
sist the  desperate  charge  of  the  Mamelukes,  "  soldiers, — from  the 
lights  of  yonder  pyramids  forty  centuries  look  down  on  you." 

Forty  centuries  and  more  have  rolled  away  since  Cheops  and 
Cephren  built  these  monuments  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile.  Could 
those  stony  masses  be  endowed  with  speech  what  stories  might 
they  not  tell  us  of  the  glories  of  ancient  Egypt,  of  the  rise  and  fall 
of  dynasties  and  kingdoms,  of  the  horrors  of  war  and  the  bless- 
ings of  peace,  and  of  the  many  events  which  their  existence  has  em- 
braced. They  could  tell  us  of  many  thousand  sunset  scenes 
like  the  one  we  have  just  witnessed  ;  of  gorgeous  pictures  painted 
on  cloud  and  sky  in  colors  that  fade  not  as  time  rolls  on  but  remain 
to-day  as  brilliant  as  when  the  morning  stars  first  sang  together 
ages  and  ages  ago. 

Our  return  voyage  was  not  marked  by  any  special  incident. 
At  sunset  we  just  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  citadel  that  overlooks 
Cairo  and  commands  with  its  black-mouthed  cannon  the  city  of 
the  Caliphs  and  the  Mamelukes.  The  arrowy  minarets  of  the 
mosque  of  Mohammed  Ali  were  faintly  discernible  against  the 


TWILIGHT    ON    THE    NILE.  639 

sky,  and  the  orange  groves  of  the  Island  of  Roda  filled  the  fore- 
ground of  the  picture  with  their  dark  foliage. 

We  were  on  deck  and  busily  engaged  in  studying  the  scene. 
There  was  a  gentle  breeze  blowing  up  the  Nile  and  we  met  nu- 
merous boats  taking  advantage  of  the  wind  that  favored  their 
southward  journey.  Most  of  them  were  empty  ;  they  had  been 
at  Cairo  and  a  market,  and  were  now  homeward  bound.  Some 
were  filled  with  men  and  women, — villagers  from  the  banks  of 
the  river,  and  every  few  moments  we  heard  sounds  of  music  and 
merriment  from  these  densely  laden  craft.  One  boat  was  so 
crowded  that  there  were  not  seats  for  all,  and  the  gunwale  of 
the  craft  was  not  more  than  two  inches  above  the  water, 

"  What  can  they  be .?"  asked  a  young  lady  who  was  generally 
the  leader  in  questioning. 

"  Don't  you  know.'"  was  the  prompt  reply,  "  it  is  a  party  of 
Cook's  tourists  on  a  pleasure  trip."  Despite' the  untruth  it  con- 
tained the  reply  caused  a  laugh  on  the  part  of  all  who  heard  it, 
including  the  fair  maiden  who  sought  to  be  informed  as  to  the 
character  of  the  party. 

Darkness  gathered  over  us  and  the  stars  came  out  in  a  moon- 
less sky  as  we  moved  slowly  down  the  stream.  Out  of  the  gloom 
came  a  white-winged  dahabeeah,  or  Nile  pleasure  boat,  and  sailed 
directly  in  the  track  we  were  pursuing.  There  was  much  run- 
ning and  shouting  by  the  Arab  crews  :  the  long  sails  were  hastily 
swung  around  but  not  soon  enough  to  save  us  from  collision  and 
attendant  excitement. 

Happily  there  was  no  damage  done,  and  happily  too  there  was 
none  of  the  emphatic  conversation  such  as  we  might  have  heard 
had  the  crews  been  of  the  English  speaking  race. 

Just  as  we  swung  clear  of  the  upward  bound  boat  and  were 
once  more  under  way,  a  rocket  shot  up  in  the  distant  darkness 
and  exploded  into  a  constellation  of  stars  not  to  be  found  in  any 
celestial  atlas. 

Another  and  another  followed  in  quick  succession,  and  then 
there  arose  a  tongue  of  flame  that  brought  the  palm  trees  into 
bold  relief. 

A  wild  shout  was  wafted  to  us  on  the  northerly  breeze,  and  it 
redoubled  when  several  rockets  rose  from  the  Citadel  as  if  an- 


640  A  GLARE    OF    ROCKETS. 

swering  the  more  distant  ones  that  first  appeared.  Then  a  hun- 
dred or  more  rockets  rose  ahiiost  together  and  the  heavens  that 
before  were  calm  and  silent,  and  luminous  only  with  the  bright 
dottings  of  myriad  stars  became  resonant  with  explosions  and 
flashing  with  the  corruscations  of  the  flying  pyrotechnics.  The 
stars  were  paled  by  the  nearer  and  more  brilUant  lights  of  man's 
handiwork,  and  we  saw  again  the  sunset  colors  released  from  the 
serene  glory  of  sky  and  cloud,  and  darting  here  and  there  as  if 
the  sun  had  burst  and  the  clouds  were  being  chased  away  by  a 
dozen  opposing  winds. 

"  What  does  all  this  mean  ?"  came  from  the  lips  of  our  inquisi- 
tive maiden. 

This  time  her  question  was  seriously  answered. 
"  It  is  the  beginning  of  the  festivities  in  honor  of  the  marriage 
of  one  of  the  sons  of  the  Khedive,"  was  the  reply.  "  The  cer- 
emony took  place  this  morning,  and  the  affair  terminates  with  a 
round  of  festivities  that  include  fireworks,  and  dinners,  and  a  good 
time  generally." 

"We  are  just  in  time,"  exclaimed  all  the  male  voices  in  the 
party.  "  We  are  just  too  late,"  was  the  exclamation  from  all  the 
female  mouths. 

Did  you  ever  see  a  woman  who  wouldn't  give  all  her  antiqua- 
ted bootees  to  attend  a  wedding  ceremonial,  and  did  you  ever 
see  a  man  who  wouldn't  give  quite  as  much  to  stay  away  from 
one— (his  own  included)— if  there  was  any  social  regulation  re- 
quiring his  attendance  ?  Of  course  there  are  exceptions  but  they 
only  affirm  the  correctness  of  the  rule.  I  know  of  no  subject  on 
which  there  is  more  divergence  of  opinion  between  the  sexes  than 
on  that  of  attending  other  people's  weddings.  In  the  present  in- 
stance all  the  women  of  our  party  thought  we  had  missed  every- 
thing in  missing  the  ceremony,  while  every  man  thought  we  were 
fortunate  in  getting  there  for  the  festivities.  As  a  spectacle  in 
a  strange  land  the  wedding  might  have  been  interesting,  but 
from  a  social  and  matrimonial  point  of  view  it  was  of  no  conse- 
quence to  a  single  beard-wearer. 

"  The  rockets'  red  glare  and  the  bombs  bursting  in  air"  contin- 
ued as  we  descended  the  stream,  and  tied  up  to  the  east  bank 
of  the  Nile,  just  above  the  new  iron  bridge  that  spans  the  river 


DONKEY   EXPERIENCES. 


641 


and  enables  you  to  take  a  carriage  drive  whenever  you  wish  to 
the  Geezereh  palace,  or  to  the  pyramids. 

It  was  so  late  that  the  ladies  concluded  not  to  leave  the  boat, 
but  we  masculines  were  not  so  particular.  We  jumped  ashore 
and  quickly  clambered  up  the  bank,  and  before  many  minutes 
elapsed,  Gustave  and  I  had  secured  donkeys  and  .were  scamper- 
ing away  in  the  direction  of  the  fireworks.  Gustave  was  lighter 
than  I,  and  urged  his  beast  so  fast  that  I  could  not  keep  up.  I 
was  striving  to  overtake  him,  when  suddenly  I  heard  a  thud  in 
the  dust-cloud  just  ahead  of  me  and  a  remark  that  was  not  alto- 
gether evangel- 
ical in  its  charac- 
ter. I  had  no 
difficulty  in  over- 
taking Gustave 
then. 

He  and  his 
donkey  were  ly-  r=^-  ^37-^ — : 
ing  all  in  a  heap,  = 
and  it  was  diffi-  ==■ 
cult  to  say  how 
much  was  donkey 
and  how  much 
was  Gustave. 
Both  were  cov- 
ered with  dust 
and  looked  as  if 
they  had  been  the  principal  attendants  of  a  country  flouring 
mill,  or  stevedores  engaged  in  the  stowage  of  a  cargo  of  plaster 
of  Paris. 

My  tendency  to  risibility  was  suddenly  terminated  by  the  fall 
of  my  donkey,  and  there  we  were  in  an  indiscriminate  mass,  two 
men  and  two  donkeys.  Some  rude  jester  may  remark  that  there 
were  four  donkeys  and  no  men  in  the  heap,  but  I  shall  take  no 
notice  of  such  impertinence. 

We  righted  ourselves  and  shook  the  dust  from  our  feet  as  a 
testimony  against  such  accidents.  I  dusted  Gustave  with  my 
riding-whip  and  he  dusted  me,  and  we  did  it  so  vigorously  that 


BITING   THE   DUST. 


642  A    FETE    IN    CAIRO. 

a  policeman  came  to  arrest  us  for  fighting.  An  explanation  in 
English,  French,  and  German,  which  he  did  not  understand, 
with  a  small  silver  coin,  which  he  did,  made  it  all  right.  He 
went  his  way  rejoicing  and  left  us  to  go  ours.  Our  drivers  got 
the  donkeys  up  and  put  them  together ;  we  remounted  and  pro- 
ceeded, this  time  at  a  more  solemn  pace.  Gustave  had  suddenly 
remembered  that  the  show  was  to  last  ten  days,  and  there  was 
no  occasion  for  us  to  be  in  a  hurry.  We  had  no  more  falls  that 
evening. 

Moral :  When  you  ride  a  donkey  in  Cairo,  take  your  time  and 
go  slow.  If  you  attempt  to  push  things,  you  will  suddenly  find 
yourself  a  greater  ass  than  the  other  one. 

The  fantasia,  as  the  natives  call  it,  was  on  a  large  open  space 
where  were  formerly  the  plantations  of  Ibrahim  Pasha.  It  is 
outside  the  city,  on  the  road  from  Cairo  to  Old  Cairo,  and  is 
studded  with  trees  that  bear  many  marks  of  antiquity.  The  road 
is  broad,  macadamized,  and  modern,  and  for  a  mile  or  more  is  as 
straight  as  a  sunbeam.  Along  this  straight  portion  there  was 
a  framework  of  posts  and  horizontal  planks,  hung  with  Chinese 
lanterns,  in  great  variety  of  colors  and  in  number  about  as  count- 
able as  a  political  meeting  on  election  night. 

There  were  thousands  of  these  lights,  but  whether  five,  ten, 
or  twenty  thousands,  I  will  not  pretend  to  say.  There  was  a 
four-inch  candle  in  each  lantern,  and  the  aggregate  of  illumina- 
tion was  sufiEicient  to  make  the  way  unmistakably  clear. 

The  open  field  as  we  approached  it,  was  on  the  left  of  the  road, 
and  opposite,  on  the  right  hand,  was  the  vice-regal  palace  known 
as  the  Kasr-el-Ali. 

Over  the  road  or  street  in  front  of  the  palace,  was  a  sort  of 
arch  of  triumph,  and  this  was  covered  with  a  profusion  of  lan- 
terns. There  were  four  or  five  rows  of  them  ;  the  lower  one 
red,  the  next  green,  and  the  rest  of  other  colors,  so  that  the 
combined  effect  was  quite  picturesque  and  had  a  great  deal  of 
Oriental  brilliancy  about  it. 

The  street  was  full  of  carriages,  and  the  policemen  had  no 
easy  work  to  keep  the  double  files  in  place.  Then  there  were 
crowds  of  pedestrians  and  equestrians,  i.  e.,  if  a  man  mounted 
on  a  donkey  can  be  called  an  equestrian — and  it  was  no  easy 


A    STRIKING    CONTRAST,  643 

matter  to  work  one's  way  through  the  struggling  mass.  But 
luckily  it  happens  that  an  Arab  crowd  is  a  good-natured  and 
non-pushing  one,  and  by  a  use  of  time  and  patience  we  managed 
to  get  along.  We  were  borne  on  the  current  into  the  field 
where  carriages  were  not  allowed  to  penetrate,  and  once  inside 
we  dismounted  and  left  the  donkeys  and  their  drivers  to  wait  till 
we  were  ready  to  return  to  the  boat. 

Two  sides  of  the  field  were  bounded  by  fences,  and  the  other 
two  by  tents,  each  tent  quite  open  at  the  end  next  the  field. 
There  were  three  or  four  bands  of  music  in  as  many  places, 
and  each  band  played  without  much  regard  for  the  others. 

The  heavens  were  ablaze  with  the  glare  of  rockets,  and  there 
were  Catherine  wheels  and  composite  pieces  on  frames  in  count- 
less numbers.  On  every  side  you  heard  expressions  of  astonish- 
ment and  delight,  just  as  you  hear  them  under  similar  pyrotech- 
nic circumstances  in  New  York  or  elsewhere. 

The  contrast  between  the  solemn  stillness  which  reigned  amid 
the  mighty  ruins  of  the  temples,  tombs,  and  cities  of  the  upper 
Nile,  which  we  had  so  lately  visited,  and  the  brilliancy  of  the 
scene  we  were  now  gazing  upon,  excited  tumultuous  emotions, 
which  I  will  not  stop  to  analyze.  We  hastened  forward,  and  in 
a  few  minutes  succeeded  in  pushing  our  way  into  the  centre  of 
the  crowd. 


CHAPTER     LI 


THE  WEDDING  OF  THE  KHEDIVE'S  SON.— ENJOYING  A    ," 
MONARCH'S  HOSPITALITY. 

High  Jinks  in  the  Egyptian  Capital — Dancing  Horses — Arabian  Blooded  Steeds — 
Treading  the  "Light  Fantastic  Toe" — Bedouin  Riders — The  Mysterious  Cage — 
Egyptian  Prima  Donnas — A  Spice  of  the  Arabian  Nights — A  Silken  Palace — 
Headquarters  of  the  Khedive — Thoughtless  Intruders  upon  Royalty — A  Glimpse 
of  the  Princes  Royal — The  Heir  of  the  Throne  of  Egypt — His  Appearance,  Dress, 
and  Character — A  Cordial  Invitation — Partaking  of  the  Khedive's  Hospitality — 
A  Turkish  Comedy — A  Free  Lunch — End  of  the  Festival. 

NEAR  the  entrance  of  the  field,  of  which  I  have  spoken, 
there  was  a  platform  twelve  or  fifteen  feet  high,  and  twenty- 
five  or  thirty  feet  square,  where  a  dozen  acrobats  were  perform- 
ing by  the  light  of  a  row  of  open  pots  of  burning  oil. 

A  little  farther  on  there  was  an  exhibition  of  dancing  horses. 
A  space  was  set  off  with  a  surrounding  of  ropes  and  stakes,  and 
into  this  space  the  horses  were  led,  two  or  three,  sometimes  half 
a  dozen,  at  a  time.  The  rider  then  took  his  place  in  the  saddle, 
flourished  a  spear,  and  the  dance  began.  You  remember  what 
Dr.  Johnson  said  about  a  dog  that  walked  on  his  hind  legs  :  It 
was  a  very  bad  imitation  of  upright  walking,  and  you  wonder 
not  at  the  way  he  does  it,  but  that  he  does  it  at  all.  It  was  so 
with  this  equine  dance.  The  animals  were  of  jDure  Arabian  stock 
and  had  been  well  trained,  and  showed  great  intelligence  ;  but 
after  all,  when  you  considered  the  performance  from  a  terpsicho- 
rean  point  of  view,  it  wasn't  much.  Some.  Arabic  music  was 
played,  and  the  horses  seemed  to  be  keeping  time  to  it,  though 
the  real  fact  was  that  the  time  was  kept  by  the  rider.     It  was  the 

(644) 


SINGING    WOMEN    IN    A    CAGE.  645 

sort  of  thing  that  most  of  us  have  seen  at  the  circus,  and  not 
equal  to  what  we  sometimes  see  in  that  entertainment.  The 
riders  were  dressed  like  Bedouins  of  the  desert,  but  were  really- 
some  of  the  Khedive's  cavalry,  attired  for  the  occasion,  to  make 
them  more  picturesque.  A  very  few  moments  sufficed  to  satisfy 
us  with  the  performance. 

The  next  thing  that  attracted  our  attention  was  a  large  crowd 
around  a  sort  of  cage  about  ten  feet  square,  and  near  the  cage 
several  musicians  were  standing,  and  playing  an  Arab  air  of  a  rather 
doleful  character.  Guards  with  rattan  canes  kept  the  assemblage 
from  approaching  too  near,  and  I  must  do  the  crowd  the  credit 
to  say  that  the  native  portion  of  it  did  not  make  any  attempt  to 
overstep  the  bounds.  Not  so  the  strangers,  of  whom  we  were 
two  ;  we  wanted  to  investigate  and  didn't  heed  the  guards  until 
they  called  us  to  order  and  motioned  for  us  to  fall  back. 

The  sides  of  the  cage  were  of  lattice-work,  and  not  unlike  the 
lathed  walls  of  a  room  before  the  plaster  is  laid  on.  We  could 
see  forms  moving  within,  but  could  not  make  out  whether  they 
were  men,  wonten,  or  beasts.  The  instrumental  music  ceased 
what  was  evidently  an  overture,  as  it  soon  struck  up  again,  and 
this  time  there  was  an  accompaniment  of  voices  from  the  interior 
of  the  cage.     Now  the  mystery  was  explained. 

In  the  Orient  it  is  not  considered  proper  for  women  to  speak 
in  public  on  the  stage,  or  even  to  sing  there.  They  have  no 
Nilssons  or  Pattis  there,  and  neither  have  they  a  Miss  Anthony  or 
Mrs.  Stanton.  The  Orient  does  not  trouble  itself  about  women's 
rights  ;  in  fact  there  are  very  few  women's  rights  there  of  any 
sort,  and  as  for  the  men's  rights,  they  are  scarce  enough.  This 
cage  that  we  saw  was  a  Steinway  Hall  or  Academy  of  Music, 
and  the  women  that  sang  there  were  inside,  where  the  eyes  of 
men  could  not  reach  them.  They  could  peer  through  the  open- 
ings and  see  the  crowd,  but  the  crowd  couldn't  peer  through  the 
openings  to  see  them.  The  guards  were  very  watchful,  and  kept 
the  masculine  eyes  from  approaching  too  near  the  sacred  enclosure. 
We  couldn't  throw  bouquets  or  kiss  our  hands  to  the  fair  singers, 
and  there  was  no  obliging  usher  who  would  undertake  to  convey 
a  note  to  the  prima  donna,  begging  the  honor  of  an  introduction. 
I  don't  think  much  of  the  Oriental  opera.  The  music  had  no 
36 


646  A    PICTURE    FROM    "ARABIAN    NIGHTS/' 

charms  to  soothe  my  Occidental  breast,  and  even  had  such  been 
the  case,  it  would  have  lost  much  by  the  concealment  of  the 
singers.  Think  of  going  to  a  concert  in  New  York  or  London, 
where  the  performers  are  hid  behind  a  grating  or  obliged  to  sing 
through  a  curtain  impervious  to  vision  !  Give  me  the  opera  of 
the  Occident,  where  you  can  see  the  singers. 

In  all  parts  of  the  field  the  people  were  collected  in  crowds, 
particularly  around  the  tents,  which  seemed  to  be  the  centres  of 
attraction. 

I  may  as  well  say  something  about  all  the  tents,  and  what  they 
were  there  for.  They  were  supposed  to  be  tents  of  repose  and 
refreshment,  and  each  person  who  visited  the  field  of  the  festivi- 
ties was  supposed  to  be  the  guest  of  the  Khedive.  Readers  of 
the  Arabian  Nights  will  remember  that  the  rulers  whose  careers 
are  there  recorded,  were  constantly  giving  entertainments  to  the 
people,  just  as  the  Roman  emperors  did  in  their  day,  and  just  as 
some  of  the  rulers  in  Europe  are  accustomed  to  do  at  the  present 
time.  Many  of  the  customs  of  the  time  of  the  Arabian  Nights 
are  continued  in  Mohammedan  countries  at  the  present  day,  but 
the  fet^s  are  less  magnificent  than  of  old,  for  the  reason  that 
money  is  less  abundant. 

Everything  was  free  in  the  show  I  am  describing  ;  lamps, 
music,  fireworks,  acrobats,  dancing  horses,  and  tents,  were  paid 
for  out  of  the  Khedive's  purse,  and  it  was  emphatically  Jiis  blow- 
out. 

The  tents  were  a  part  of  the  entertainment ;  that  on  the  ex- 
treme left  of  the  field  was  of  silk,  and  had  rich  divans  and  carpets 
in  the  interior,  and  the  one  next  to  it  was  nearly  but  not  quite  as 
magnificent  in  material  and  decorations.  As  we  moved  towards 
the  right  we  found  the  tents  steadily  diminishing  in  luxury  ;  the 
last  of  the  lot  was  fitted  with  common  chairs  and  uncushioned 
divans,  and  had  the  earth  for  a  carpet.  A  placard  or  sign  in  front 
of  the  entrance  indicated  the  use  of  each  tent  and  the  persons  to 
whom  it  was  appropriated. 

Beginning  on  the  left,  the  tents  were  appropriated  as  follows : 
First,  the  Khedive  and  his  sons  ;  second,  the  corps  diplomatique  ; 
third,  judges  and  law  officials.  Then  there  was  a  tent  each  to 
the  ministers  of  war,  navy,  foreign  affairs,  finance,  etc.      Then 


THE    FUTURE    KHEDIVE.  64/ 

f 

there  was  a  tent  for  each  of  the  following  departments  and 
classes  :  Military  and  naval  officers  ;  court  and  staff  officers ; 
engineer's  staff ;  custom-house  officials ;  higher  courts  ;  clergy — 
Mohammedan  clergy,  Arab  and  Coptic  clergy,  Christian  clergy  ; 
city  officials  ;  police  officials  ;  school  officials  ;  railway  officials  ; 
merchants  of  higher  class  ;  builders  and  architects  ;  medical 
men  ;  merchants  of  Cairo  ;  merchants  of  Alexandria  ;  merchants 
of  other  parts  of  Egypt ;  officials  of  small  towns  ;  gentlemen  of 
upper  Egypt  ;  gentlemen  of  lower  Egypt  ;  and  last,  the  public 
in  general,  to  whom  four  tents  were  assigned. 

Each  tent  had  several  attendants,  one  of  whom — the  chief — 
was  supposed  to  represent  the  Khedive,  and  to  entertain  visitors 
in  his  name.  We  thoughtlessly  endeavored  to  enter  the  first 
tent,  where  the  Khedive's  sons  had  just  arrived  with  a  numerous 
following  of  staff  officers,  but  the  guards  kept  us  back.  The  two 
youths  were  sipping  coffee  and  chatting  with  those  around  them  ; 
the  elder,  the  heir  to  the  throne,  has  a  pleasing  face,  and  appeared 
quite  vivacious,  but  the  second  was  a  trifle  too  fat  and  stout  to 
have  any  very  expressive  lines  about  his  features.  A  few  even- 
ings later  I  had  an  introduction  to  both  of  them,  followed  by  a 
chat  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  principally  with  the  elder.  He 
speaks  French  fluently,  and  has  an  easy,  polished  manner  quite 
unlike  the  traditional  gravity  of  the  Oriental.  His  dress  is  en- 
tirely European,  with  the  exception  of  the  fez,  and  his  general 
appearance  reminds  one  more  of  Europe  than  of  the  drowsy 
East.  Great  care  has  been  bestowed  on  his  education,  and  when 
he  comes  to  the  throne  he  will  not  be  unaware  of  his  duties  and 
responsibilities. 

Several  officers  of  the  diplomatic  corps  were  in  the  tent  appro- 
priated to  them,  and  were  sipping  coffee  and  smoking  cigars  and 
cigarettes  in  an  easy,  unconcerned  way.  A  few  screens  had  been 
set  up  at  one  side  of  the  tent  to  form  an  extempore  theatre, 
where  half  a  dozen  actors  were  giving  a  Turkish  comedy.  I  say 
actors  for  the  reason  that  though  two  women  were  in  the  piece, 
their  characters  were  sustained  by  men  so  well  disguised  in  dress, 
voice,  and  manner,  that  their  sex  would  not  be  suspected. 

The  diplomats  paid  very  little  attention  to  the  play,  and  the 
most  appreciative  part  of  the  audience  was  that  which  stood  out- 


648  "WERY    FILLIN'"    coffee. 

side  the  ropes  and  could  not  get  in.  We  endeavored  to  gain 
admission  to  tent  after  tent,  but  were  politely  but  firmly  kept 
back  until  we  reached  the  one  appropriated  to  the  engineer  staff, 
where  the  representative  of  the  Khedive  spoke  to  us  in  French 
and  invited  us  to  walk  in.  An  attendant  was  ordered  to  bring  us 
coffee  and  another  to  bring  us  cigars  or  cigarettes  at  our  choice, 
and  we  were  shown  to  seats  on  the  divans.  We  crossed  our  legs 
in  Oriental  style,  and  thus  made  a  favorable  impression  that  se- 
cured us  a  second  cup  of  coffee  before  we  left. 

From  this  tent  onward  we  were  welcomed  at  all,  but  we  were 
quite  satisfied  after  visiting  three  or  four,  as  etiquette  required 
that  we  should  take  coffee  whenever  we  sat  down,  and  the  coffee 
of  the  East  is  like  Sam  Weller's  veal  pie,  "werry  fillin."  We  had 
a  good  taste  of  Oriental  hospitality,  and  were  not  at  all  displeased 
with  the  courtesy  that  was  shown  us. 

All  foreigners  who  were  on  the  ground  were  treated  with  sim- 
ilar liberality  and  coffee,  but  the  general  populace  was  not  allowed 
to  enter  any  of  the  tents  except  those  specially  assigned  to  it. 

Returning  to  the  front  of  the  Diplomatic  tent  I  found  the 
Turkish  comedy  still  in  progress  and  the  diplomats  as  inattentive 
as  before.  While  we  were  standing  near  the  ropes  our  Consul- 
General,  Mr.  Beardsley,  caught  sight  of  me  and  came  out  to  shake 
hands.  The  instant  he  spoke  to  me  the  guards  made  way  and 
escorted  Gustave  and  myself  into  the  tent  and  were  as  civil 
to  us  as  to  any  of  the  accredited  occupants.  The  attendants 
brought  coffee  and  cigars  on  the  instant ;  the  coffee  was  better 
and  the  cigars  were  of  much  finer  quality  than  those  \ve  had  re- 
ceived in  the  tents  further  down  the  line.  The  divans  were 
softer  and  the  carpet  was  real  Turkey  that  must  have  cost  many 
piastres  to  the  square  yard.  We  reclined  in  front  of  the  impro- 
vised theatre,  and  pretended  to  be  much  interested  in  the  play, 
thinking  that  was  the  proper  thing  to  do.  Mr.  Beardsley  ex- 
plained that  we  would  offend  nobody,  not  even  the  actors,  by  pay- 
ing no  attention  to  the  show,  and  as  we  could  not  understand  the 
dialogue,  we  very  soon  became  as  careless  and  unobservant  as 
anybody  else. 

Turkish  comedy  must  be  a  tame  affair  according  to  Western 
ideas,  and  I  would  not  advise  any  enterprising  manager  to  import 


ENJOYING    THE    KHEDIVE's    HOSPITALITY.  649 

a  company  from  Constantinople  or  Cairo  under  the  belief  that  he 
could  make  a  sensation  and  with  it  a  fortune.  The  recitations 
were  monotonous  and  the  plot  was  exceedingly  simple  as  Mr. 
Beardsley  explained  it,  and  had  the  usual  mixture  of  love  and 
jealousy  that  we  find  in  comedies  all  over  the  globe. 

"  It  is  fortunate  for  you,"  said  he  with  a  smile,  "  that  you  do 
not  understand  Turkish  dialogue.  Your  sensibilities  might  re- 
ceive a  shock  from  some  of  the  allusions  which  are  rather  too  in- 
delicate for  the  English  or  American  stage." 

"  Where  ignorance  is  bliss  'tis  folly  to  be  wise,"  saith  the  old 
proverb.  We  drank  our  coffee  and  smoked  our  cigars  undis- 
turbed by  the  improprieties  we  could  not  comprehend. 

Cakes  and  sweetmeats  were  brought  but  we  declined  them, 
and  soon  followed  Mr.  Beardsley  to  the  outer  gate  where  his  car- 
riage awaited  him.  Bidding  him  good  night  we  returned  to  the 
enclosure  and  stumbled  upon  a  large  tent  standing  apart  from  the 
rest.  Investigating  this  we  found  that  it  was  a  restaurant  with 
what  a  New  Yorker  would  call  a  free  lunch  standing  ready  for 
those  who  were  hungry.  The  bill  of  fare  was  not  extensive,  but 
consisted  of  Arab  stews  of  mutton  and  goat's  flesh,  and  of  two 
or  three  dishes  in  which  rice  was  a  prominent  ingredient.  We 
were  invited  to  enter  but  declined  as  we  had  had  all  the  Arab 
dishes  we  wanted  during  our  Nile  journey. 

When  the  hereditary  prince  was  married  the  restaurants  were 
more  numerous  and  better  supplied  than  on  the  present  occasion, 
and  I  was  told  that  in  one  of  them  there  was  a  free  service  of 
champagne  to  all  foreigners.  No  really  good  Mohammedan 
drinks  wine — his  religion  forbids  it — but  they  are  not  very  straight- 
laced  in  Egypt,  and  you  not  unfrequently  find  steady  drinkers 
who  between  their  glasses  repeat  reverentially  the  Moslem  form- 
ula "  La  illah,  il  Allah  ;  Mohammed  yessul  illah  !"  (There  is  no 
God  but  God  and  Mohammed  is  the  Prophet  of  God.)  The  East 
is  fast  becoming  civilized.  As  I  have  before  said,  many  Orien- 
tals who  would  have  been  horrified  at  the  thought  twenty  years 
ago  will  now  treat  their  wives  as  though  they  were  human  be- 
ings, and  do  not  hesitate  to  get  drunk  when  occasion  offers. 
New  England  missionaries  and  New  England  rum  are  more  pop- 
ular in  the  Orient  than  they  were  formerly. 


650 


DREAMS    OF    A    GALA    NIGHT. 


But  while  I  have  been  talking,  the  pyrotechnics  have  burned 
out,  the  musicians — Arab  and  Occidental — have  ended  their 
strains,  the  tent-lamps  are  burning  dimly,  the  candles  in  the 
Chinese  lanterns  are  flickering,  the  acrobats  and  singers  have 
disappeared,  and  the  crowd  is  dispersing.  So  we  will  to  our  don- 
keys and  gallop  back  to  our  boat  moored  against  the  bank  of  the 
lotos-bearing  Nile,  and  in  the  quiet  of  its  cabins  will  fall  into  a 
well-earned  sleep  to  be  filled  with  dreams  of  a  gala  night  in 
Egypt. 


CHAPTER    LII 


WOMEN    AMONG    THE    MOHAMMEDANS— LIFE    IN    THE    HAREM. 


Polygamy  Among  the  Turks  and  Arabs — A  Full-Stocked  Harem — Unveiling  the 
Women — Romantic  Adventure — A  Brief  Flirtation — The  "  Light  of  the  Harem  " 
— Love  at  First  Sight — How  Egyptian  Women  Dress— Some  Hints  to  the  Ladies 
— Wearing  Trowsers — Robes,  Caftans,  and  Peaked  Shoes — Rainbow  Colors — 
How  they  Dress  their  Hair — Crowned  with  Coins — A  Walking  Jewelry  Shop — 
The  Pretty  Egyptienne  Orange  Girl — Street  Costume — Paris  Fashions  in  the 
Khedive's  Harem — Beauties  Riding  Donkeys  Man  Fashion — How  they  Go  Shop- 
ping— Animated  Bales  of  Dry  Goods — Black  Eyes  in  a  Bundle  of  Silks — Mar- 
riage Brokers — How  they  Dispose  of  their  Daughters  in  the  Fast — A  Turkish 
Courtship — A  Donkey  Driver  Gives  an  Opinion — The  Wedding  and  the  Honey- 
moon— Divorces  in  Egypt — An  Easy  Process — Many-Wived  Men. 

THE  Mohammedan  religion  allows  four  wives  to  each  mascu- 
line believer,  but  there  is  no  limit  to  his  number  of  brevet 
or  spiritual  wives.  Twenty-five  years  ago  every  well-to-do  Turk 
considered  it  necessary  for  him  to  have  the  legal  complement  in 
the  matrimonial  line,  and  he  w^as  not  up  to  the  social  high  water 
mark  unless  he  had  a  well-stocked  harem.  But  the  West  and  its 
customs  have  invaded  domestic,  as  they  have  invaded  commer- 
cial life  Many  respectable  Turks  have  adopted  monogamous 
habits,  and  live  happily  with  one  wife.  True,  they  may  have  a 
liberal  number  of  slaves  in  their  harems,  and  these  slaves  may 
be  pretty  and  attractive  to  an  extent  not  approved  by  the  lady 
of  the  house. 

But  the  fact  that  monogamy  is  endurable,  and  has  no  social 
stigma  attached  to  it,  shows  to  what  an  extent  the  East  has  been 
influenced  by  western  ideas.     All  Oriental  women  must  go  veiled 

(651) 


652  A    ROMANTIC    ADVENTURE. 

in  public,  but  it  is  observable  that  the  veil  is  thinner  than  of  old, 
and  a  woman  of  the  upper  classes  may  now  go  abroad  with  per- 
fect propriety,  wearing  a  veil  so  diaphanous  that  the  features  are 
clearly  discernible  through  it. 

Here  is  a  little  story — you  may  call  it  a  confession  if  you  like, 
but  please  consider  it  confidential. 

One  afternoon  two  of  us — my  companion  was  a  handsome 
young  man — were  taking  a  stroll  in  one  of  these  Oriental  cities, 
and  came  upon  a  blockade  of  vehicles,  equestrians,  donkeys,  and 
pedestrians,  just  as  we  might  happen  upon  a  blockade  in  Broad- 
way or  Fourteenth  street.  There  was  a  gay  carriage,  with  a  gor- 
geous driver  managing  a  pair  of  spirited  horses,  and  in  the  car- 
riage were  two  richly-dressed  and  veiled  ladies.  A  heavy  and 
rather  stupid  looking  eunuch  was  on  the  box  by  the  driver's  side, 
and  both  he  and  the  driver  had  their  attention  diverted  by  the 
blockade.  We  edgisd  up  to  the  carriage  under  pretence  of  dodg- 
ing a  passing  camel,  and,  rude  foreigners  that  we  were,  peered 
inside. 

Through  the  faint  gauze  I  could  see  that  both  women  were 
pretty,  I  said  so  in  French  to  my  companion  ;  the  ladies  laughed 
and  one  of  them  made  an  inclination  of  her  head  toward  the 
black  fellow  on  the  box.  I  nodded  to  indicate  that  he  was  not 
looking,  and  when  satisfied  that  all  was  right,  she  quickly  raised 
her  veil  and  showed  us  a  face  as  pretty  as  any  we  had  seen  for 
many  weeks.  We  had  only  a  momentary  glance,  but  it  was  enough 
to  photograph  that  pretty  face  on  our  memories. 

There  was  a  clear,  transparent  skin,  finely-cut  features  of  true 
Circassian  type;  there  were  rounded  cheeks,  eyes  of  melting 
softness,  and  eye-brows  that  slightly  pencilled,  gave  the  eye 
a  fullness  it  would  not  have  otherwise  possessed.  She  smiled  as 
she  raised  her  veil,  and  the  smile  produced  the  most  exquisite 
dimple  and  revealed  a  set  of  teeth  that  a  belle  of  London  or  New 
York  might  have  envied. 

'' Bien  incrci,  Madame"  said  I,  in  a  low  tone  ;  " Coinme  vous 
^tes  belief" 

She  smiled  again  and  nodded  as  she  dropped  her  veil.  Just 
then  the  colored  gentleman  on  the  box  caught  sight  of  us,  and 
shouted  "  Empshy  /''  in  no  pleasing  voice.     Fearing   to  bring 


A    BRIEF    FLIRTATION.  653 

trouble  upon  the  fair  lady  who  was  destined  to  be  the  subject  of 
our  thoughts  and  dreams  until  another  pretty  face  should  come 
in  our  way,  we  moved  off  and  left  the  carriage  to  emerge  from 
the  blockade. 

But  we  looked  back  once  and  caught  the  flutter  of  a  handker- 
chief, and  a  glimpse  of  the  delicate  hand  that  held  it. 

Is  not  the  East  becoming  civilized  when  such  an  incident  as 
this  is  possible  ?  No  fashionable  girl  in  American  society  could 
show  more  readiness  for  a  flirtation  with  a  stranger  than  did  that 
pretty  Orientale. 

While  in  Egypt  I  received  a  letter  from  an  American  lady,  in 
which  I  was  thus  commanded  : 

"  How  do  the  Egyptian  women  dress  ?  I  want  to  know  all 
about  it ;  and  if  you  don't  tell  me,  you  shall  never  be  forgiven." 

To  hear,  under  such  circumstances,  is  to  obey. 

Before  receiving  that  letter  I  had  contented  myself  with  look- 
ing at  the  pretty  faces  of  the  Egyptian  women,  for  many  of  them 
are  pretty.  They  are  rather  vain  of  their  beauty,  and  thus  unlike 
their  sex  in  all  other  countries.  Many  of  them  keep  the  word  of 
promise  to  the  ear,  but  break  it  to  the  hope,  as  I  have  already 
explained,  by  wearing  veils  of  such  a  slight  texture  that  the  fea- 
tures are  clearly  discernible  through  it. 

It  is  not  considered  polite  to  look  at  Moslem  ladies  when  out 
for  a  promenade  ;  at  any  rate,  such  is  the  Koran's  injunction  to 
the  faithful,  and  they  are  generally  careful  to  observe  it.  But  I 
was  of  the  infidel  race,  could  not  read  the  Koran,  and  further- 
more was  carried  away  by  that  fatal  attribute  of  my  sex,  curiosity. 
What  wonder,  then,  that  I  violated  the  Egyptian  code  of  etiquette, 
and  embraced  every  opportunity  to  see  the  faces  of  the  Oriental 
beauties  .-' 

On  the  receipt  of  that  letter  I  invoked  the  aid  of  an  American 
lady  residing  in  Cairo,  and  set  about  the  study  of  Egyptian 
fashions. 

The  Egyptian  women  display  considerable  taste  in  their  dress, 
quite  as  much  as  one  could  expect  in  a  country  where  there  is 
very  little  change  of  fashion  from  year  to  year. 

They  wear  an  under  garment,  with  very  full  sleeves  reaching 
to  the  wrist,  made  very  loose  and  full,  and  which  does  not  in  the 


654  EGYPTIAN    FASHIONS. 

least  impede  the  movements  of  the  wearer.  Then  comes  a  pair 
of  very  wide  trowsers,  such  as  we  see  in  pictures  ;  they  are  held 
around  the  waist  by  a  running  string,  and  the  lower  ends  are 
fastened  in  the  same  way  just  below  the  knee.  The  trowsers  are 
made  very  long,  so  that  when  fastened  in  the  way  described  they 
hang  down  to  the  feet.  They  are  of  colored,  striped,  worked,  or 
plain  material,  and  may  be  of  silk,  cotton,  or  muslin,  according  to 
the  taste  and  ability  of  the  wearer. 

The  next  article  of  apparel,  is  a  vest  or  wrapper  of  the  same 
material  as  the  trowsers.  It  fits  the  body  with  reasonable  close- 
ness, and  is  made  to  button  down  the  front  to  a  little  below  the 
waist,  from  which  point  it  is  open,  and  it  is  also  open  at  the  sides 
from  the  hips  downward.  According  to  the  strict  rule  of  the 
Orient,  this  garment  should  reach  to  the  floor  when  the  wearer 
stands  erect,  but  many  ladies  wear  it  in  the  form  of  a  loose  jacket 
reaching  only  to  the  waist  and  gathered  in  rather  loosely. 

For  the  girdle  a  shawl  or  embroidered  kerchief  is  folded  diag- 
onally, and  tied  loosely  in  such  a  way  that  the  knots  are  not  visi- 
ble. The  sleeves  of  the  vest  are  made  much  larger  than  the  arm, 
but  are  cut  open  below  the  wrist  so  that  they  do  not  interfere 
with  the  movements  of  the  hands.  Sleeves  not  much  unlike 
them,  are  sometimes  the  fashion  in  Occidental  countries. 

Outside  of  the  foregoing  they  wear  a  long  dress  or  caftan  of 
cloth,  silk,  or  velvet,  entirely  open  in  front,  hanging  loosely  and 
open  at  the  sides  like  the  vest,  but  having  sleeves  that  reach  only 
to  the  wrist.  It  is  sometimes  plain,  but  is  more  generally  em- 
broidered with  gold  thread  or  colored  silk,  and  it  should  be  of 
sufficient  length  to  trail  on  the  floor  when  the  wearer  walks  about. 
Sometimes  a  short  jacket  or  sacque  of  the  same  material  as  the 
above  garment,  and  embroidered  in  a  similar  manner,  is  worn 
instead  of  the  caftan,  particularly  in  the  warm  weather  when  the 
latter  would  be  too  heavy. 

Shoes  are  of  red  morocco,  pointed  and  turned  up  at  the  toes. 
Stockings  or  socks  are  not  generally  worn,  but  in  place  of  them 
the  Egyptian  ladies  make  use  of  slippers  that  fit  quite  closely. 
The  outer  shoes  are  large  enough  to  go  on  over  the  slippers,  and 
whenever  a  lady  has  occasion  to  step  off  the  carpet  or  matting 
of  the  inner  rooms  of  the   house,    she   thrusts   her  feet  into  the 


HOW    THE    LADIES    DRESS.  65/ 

large  shoes,  or  into  pattens  or  clogs  that  elevate  her  four  or  five 
inches,  and  thus  lift  her  skirts  from  the  ground.  These  pattens 
are  very  difficult  to  manage,  and  give  the  wearer  an  awkward 
mincing  gait.  Adult  novices  find  them  especially  inconvenient. 
In  the  few  times  I  attempted  to  wear  them,  I  think  I  was  never 
able  to  walk  more  than  a  dozen  steps,  without  falling  down  and 
bringing  my  head  so  near  them  as  to  illustrate  the  French  pro- 
verb, Les  extremes  se  toiichent. 

The  hair  is  cut  short  over  the  forehead,  and  hangs  on  each  side 
of  the  face  to  a  level  with  the  chin.  The  rest  of  the  hair  is 
combed  so  as  to  hang  down  the  back,  and  it  is  divided  into  braids. 
These  are  from  eleven  to  twenty-five,  according  to  the  wearer's 
taste,  but  the  number  is  always  uneven,  since  the  Egyptian  ladies 
share  the  belief  of  Rory  O'More,  as  recorded  in  the  familiar  song. 
Each  braid  sustains  three  cords  of  black  silk,  and  to  the  cords 
are  attached  beads  or  scales  of  coral,  gold,  or  silver,  and  some- 
times pearls  or  even  diamonds.  Coins  are  attached  to  the  ends 
of  the  cords,  and  the  general  effect  is  not  unpleasant. 

The  cords  are  sometimes  attached  to  a  band  of  silk,  concealed 
by  the  hair,  and  when  thus  arranged  they  can  be  removed  with- 
out any  disturbance  of  the  braids.  The  metal  or  other  ornaments 
begin  just  at  the  base  of  the  neck,  and  the  cords  terminate  about 
a  foot  farther  down. 

Among  the  lower  classes  other  ornaments  are  attached  to  the 
head,  and  hang  down  over  the  forehead  and  at  the  side  of  the 
face,  and  sometimes  there  is  such  a  profusion  of  them  as  to  make 
you  think  a  whole  jewelry  store  has  started  on  its  travels.  There 
was  a  pretty  Egyptienne  who  used  to  peddle  oranges  around  the 
hotel  where  I  stopped.  Her  entire  head  was  spangled  around 
with  little  plaques  of  gilded  silver,  that  rattled  as  she  moved,  and 
made  a  brilliant  effect  when  she  stood  or  walked  in  the  sun- 
shine. 

The  head-covering  of  an  Egyptian  lady  consists  of  -a.  fez  or  tar- 
boosh— the  little  red  cap  with  a  silk  tassel  which  is  worn  from  one 
end  of  Mohammeddom  to  the  other.  A  kerchief  of  colored  muslin 
or  crape  is  wound  round  the  fez  and  forms  a  turban  something 
like  that  worn  by  the  men,  but  higher  and  more  conical.  On  the 
top  of  the  turban  they  frequently  place  a  sort  of  inverted  saucer 


658  STREET    COSTUMES. 

of  gold  or  silver  gilt,  embossed  or  in  filigree-work,  and  ornamented 
with  precious  stones,  or  imitations  of  them.  Every  Egyptian 
lady  that  can  afford  the  expense  has  a  supply  of  diamonds,  often 
of  a  very  poor  quality,  and  those  who  have  not  the  genuine  stones 
make  a  display  of  artificial  ones.  Vanity  and  envy  are  not  un- 
known in  the  land  of  the  Pharoahs. 

So  much  for  the  indoor  dress — the  "at  home"  costume.  Let 
us  follow  our  lady  out  of  the  house  and  into  the  street. 

Outside  of  what  we  have  seen  her  wearing,  she  puts  on  a  loose 
gown  with  very  wide  sleeves,  and  of  rose,  pink,  or  violet  silk. 
Then  she  dons  her  veil,  a  strip  of  white  muslin  covering  the  face 
below  the  eyes  and  reaching  almost  to  the  ground.  The  corners 
are  attached  to  a  band  that  passes  round  the  head,  and  the  middle 
is  kept  well  up  over  the  nose  by  a  narrow  strip  that  goes  over 
the  forehead  and  is  fastened  to  the  encircling  band.  Then  she 
puts  on,  if  she  is  married,  an  outer  covering  of  black  silk  that 
conceals  everything  but  the  white  veil  and  che  eyes  above  it. 
An  unmarried  lady  wears  a  similar  garment  of  white,  not  black 
silk,  or  she  may  wear  a  shawl  instead  of  it.  This  outer  garment 
is  exceedingly  inconvenient  for  a  pedestrian  excursion,  and  its 
use  is  obligatory  only  when  the  promenade  is  not  to  be  made  on 
foot. 

For  an  out-door  excursion  the  shoes  give  way  to  morocco  boots, 
at  least  in  theory.  But  the  customs  of  Europe  are  gaining 
ground  in  the  Orient  to  the  extent  that  many  ladies  of  Cairo  and 
Constantinople  have  adopted  the  French  boot  and  discarded  the 
Oriental  one  altogether.  Even  in  Damascus,  the  centre  of  Islam, 
and  far  more  fanatical  than  the  other  cities  of  the  Orient,  the 
French  boot  has  found  a  foot-hold,  (joke,  poor  and  not  intentional,) 
and  its  popularity  is  increasing  And  this  may  be  a  good  place 
to  remark  that  the  ladies  of  the  Khedive's  family  get  a  great 
many  of  their  fashions  from  Paris,  and  very  often  the  yaslmtak, 
or  veil,  is  the  only  thing  about  them  of  a  truly  Oriental  type. 
And  this  veil  is  not  the  muslin  one  that  I  have  described,  but  the 
light  Turkish  veil,  descending  only  a  little  below  the  chin  and 
wound  loosely  about  the  face.  Very  many  of  the  women  of  the 
lower  order  never  conceal  their  faces,  and  many  of  the  water- 
carriers  and  those  who  sell  bread,  oranges,  and  other  edibles,  in 


BAREFOOTED    WOMEN. 


659 


the  streets  of  Cairo,  go  barefoot,  their  dress  consisting  only  of  a 
long  gown  reaching  to  the  ankles,  and  a  loose  cloak  thrown  over 
the  head  and  shoulders. 

When  our  lady  whose  costume  we  have  been  examining  goes 
out  for  a  promenade,  she  generally  rides  upon  a  donkey.     Of  late 


liREAD    SELLER    IN     lllE    STUEEl'S    UK    CAIRO. 

years  carriages  have  intruded  upon  the  donkey's  domain,  and  the 
natives  use.  them  considerably,  but  the  patient  animal  is  still 
regarded  with  respect,  and  is  a  fashionable  beast  of  burden.  The 
saddle  for  Egyptian  ladies'  use  is  high  and  broad,  and  covered  with 
a  small  carpet,  and  our  heroine  is  seated  astride  with  both  feet  in 


660  A    FASHIONABLE    BEAST    OF    BURDEN. 

the  Stirrups.  She  appears  to  sit  very  high  above  the  animal's 
back,  and  to  be  in  danger  of  falling  off,  but  is  really  quite  safe 
and  secure. 

The  donkeys  are  trained  to  their  work,  and  move  along  very 
easily,  with  a  motion  that  inspires  confidence  in  the  rider.  There 
is  always  a  man  on  one,  and  frequently  on  each  side  of  the  beast, 
and  he  is  very  watchful,  knowing  the  trouble  that  would  come  to 
him  should  any  accident  befall  his  precious  charge. 

Generally  all  the  ladies  of  a  single  harem  go  out  together,  so 
that  the  sight  of  two,  three,  or  four  persons  thus  equipped  is 
more  frequent  than  that  of  one  alone.  I  do  not  mean  that  all 
the  women  of  a  single  group  are  necessarily  wives  of  one  man  ; 
they  may  be  his  wife's  sisters,  or  mother ;  in  fact,  the  same  rela- 
tion may  exist  as  among  the  feminine  members  of  an  English  or 
American  family. 

Many  Mohammedans  are  monogamous,  and  the  notions  of  the 
Occident  in  regard  to  plurality  of  wives  are  every  year  becoming 
more  and  more  in  vogue  through  the  Orient.  Many  of  the 
Cairene  gentlemen  have  their  mothers  and  sisters  in  their  fami- 
lies, and  some  few  have  their  mothers-in-law.  It  is  proper  to 
remark  that  the  views  of  the  Orient  on  the  mother-in-law  ques- 
tion do  not  differ  materially  from  those  of  the  Occident. 

A  lady  in  her  out-of-door  dress,  and  mounted  on  a  donkey, 
appears  far  more  like  a  bale  of  goods  than  like  a  human  being. 
Especially  is  this  the  case  if  a  slight  wind  is  blowing  and  she  is 
riding  against  it,  or  if  the  air  is  still  and  she  rides  faster  than  a 
walk.  The  silken  wrapper  is  puffed  out  like  a  balloon,  and  some- 
times appears  to  be  three  or  four  feet  in  diameter. 

At  my  first  view  of  a  private  harem  taking  its  promenade,  I 
asked  a  friend  what  those  donkeys  were  laden  with. 

"The  most  valuable  goods  .in  Cairo,"  he  replied.  "Without 
them  Egypt  would  soon  cease  to  exist." 

"Really!"  I  said.     " And  what  are  they .-*" 

Before  he  could  answer,  one  of  the  bundles  turned  in  my  direc- 
tion, and  I  saw  a  pair  of  lustrous  black  eyes  above  a  veil.  I  was 
enlightened,  and  had  no  more  questions  to  ask. 

A  stranger  in  a  Mohammedan  city  is  sure  to  have  his  curiosity 
aroused,  before  he  has  been  there  many  days,  on  the  subject  of 


FEMININE    MATCH-MAKERS.  66l 

marriage.  Wedding  processions  are  quite  numerous  ;  in  a  single 
afternoon's  promenade  in  Cairo  I  have  seen  as  many  as  half  a 
dozen.  Naturally,  the  sight  of  such  a  procession  leads  one  to 
ask  about  the  marriage  customs. 

Among  the  Moslems,  marriages  are  generally  arranged  by 
brokers,  though  not  always  so.  There  are  some  love-matches  in 
which  the  parties  become  attached  to  each  other  without  the  in- 
troduction of  a  third  party,  but  they  are  by  no  means  common. 
When  a  man  has  reached  the  marrying  age  he  is  expected  to 
enter  the  matrimonial  state,  unless  prevented  by  poverty  or  some 
other  impediment,  and  it  is  considered  improper,  and  even  dis- 
honorable, for  him  to  refrain  from  so  doing. 

If  a  marriageable  youth  has  a  mother,  she  describes  to  him  the 
girls  of  her  acquaintance,  and  enables  ^him  to  decide  whom  to 
take  to  his  house  and  home.  If  he  has  no  mother,  and  frequently 
when  he  has  one,  he  engages  a  woman  whose  profession  is  that 
of  KJiat-beJi,  or  marriage-broker  ;  she  has  access  to  harems  where 
there  are  marriageable  women,  and  is  employed  by  them  quite  as 
often  as  by  the  men.  She  receives  fees  from  one  party  and  fre- 
quently from  both. 

Observe  the  superiority  of  Christendom  over  Islam.  In  our 
own  country  feminine  match-makers  are  numerous,  but  they  work 
without  pay.  The  only  reward  they  expect  or  desire  is  the  satis- 
faction of  having  made  two  people  happy — or  miserable.  For 
the  result  of  the  marriages  they  cause,  they  generally  care  as 
little  as  do  their  Moslem  sisters. 

The  Moslem  broker  goes  to  the  harems,  accompanied  by  the 
mother  or  other  feminine  relations  of  the  young  man  ;  she  intro- 
duces them  as  ordinary  visitors,  but  gives  a  sly  hint  as  to  the 
object  of  their  call.  If  they  do  not  like  the  appearance  of  the 
maiden  they  plead  many  calls  to  make,  and  cut  short  their  stay, 
but  if  satisfied,  they  come  to  business  at  once,  and  ask  how  much 
property,  personal  or  otherwise,  the  young  lady  possesses.  When 
these  facts  are  ascertained,  they  depart,  with  the  intimation  that 
they  may  call  again. 

It  is  a  strange  peculiarity  of  Moslem  countries  that  a  rich  girl 
can  find  a  husband  more  readily  than  can  a  poor  one.  I  am 
sure  such  a  thing  was  never  heard  of  in  England  or  America. 


662 


AN    EGYPTIAN    COURTSHIP. 


The  young  man  hears  the  report  of  the  broker,  and,  if  satisfied, 
he  sends  her  again  to  the  harem  to  state  his  prospects  in  life,  and 
give  a  personal  description  of  himself.  The  broker  is  not  par- 
ticular to  confine  herself  to  facts,  and  indulges  in  that  hyperbole 
for  which  the  Orient  is  famed.  Her  client  may  be  a  very  ordinary 
youth,  with  no  property  of  consequence,  and  whom  she  has  never 


'■'  ''li 


A    LADY    OF   THE    HAKEM. 

seen  three  times  in  her  life.     She  strikes  an  attitude  before  the 
maiden,  and  says  : 

"  O,  my  daughter !  he  has  heard  of  you,  and  his  heart  is  heavy 
for  love  of  you.  He  is  handsome  as  the  moon,  and  his  eyes 
sparkle  like  the  stars  ;  he  has  a  form  and  figure  which  all  the  world 
envy,  and  he  has  wealth  surpassing  all  that  Aladdin's  Lamp  could 
bestow.     He  will  buy  the  finest  house  in  Cairo  ;  you  will  be  his 


"BUYING    A    WIFE."  663 

thought  by  day  and  his  dream  by  night,  and  his  whole  time  will 
be  devoted  to  loving  and  caressing  you." 

It  is  customary  for  parents  to  obtain  a  daughter's  consent  to  a 
marriage,  but  this  is  not  at  all  necessary,  and  very  often  is  considered 
a  mere  trifle  not  worth  regarding.  Sometimes  the  father  interferes 
when  he  discovers  that  the  proposed  husband  is  poor,  or  has  a 
bad  temper ;  any  slight  objection  of  this  sort  makes  paterfamilias 
whimsical,  and  serves  as  a  stumbling  block.  He  frequently  in- 
sists that  a  younger  daughter  shall  not  be  married  before  an  elder 
one,  and  sometimes  the  broker  describes  a  young  and  charming 
maiden  to  the  anxious  youth  while  she  negotiates  the  match  for 
her  elder  and  less  attractive  sister.  If  he  subsequently  com- 
plains, she  assures  him  that  it  is  all  in  the  family,  and  says  he 
can  imagine  that  he  has  wedded  the  beauty  by  wedding  her 
sister. 

Among  the  middle  and  upper  classes  the  man  never  sees  the 
face  of  his  bride  until  the  marriage  ceremony  is  concluded. 
This  excellent  custom  greatly  facilitates  business,  as  it  does  away 
with  any  absurd  notion  he  may  have  about  beauty. 

When  the  preliminaries  are  settled,  the  bridegroom  calls  upon 
the  girl's  "  Wekeel"  or  deputy,  and  concludes  the  contract.  This 
deputy  is  her  nearest  male  relative,  or  her  guardian,  and  his  special 
duty  is  to  fix  the  terms  of  the  dowry  which  the  husband  is  to 
pay.  This  varies  according  to  the  wealth  and  position  of  the 
parties ;  the  least  sum  allowed  by  law  is  equal  to  about  five  English 
shillings,  and  this  is  indispensable. 

Among  respectable  tradesmen  and  people  of  the  middle  classes, 
fifty  or  seventy-five  dollars  will  sufiEice,  and  there  is  almost  always  a 
great  deal  of  haggling  before  the  amount  of  the  dowry  is  fixed. 
From  the  necessity  of  paying  something  to  the  bride's  family,  the 
youths  not  unnaturally  speak  of  marriage  as  "  buying  a  wife." 
A  donkey-driver  whom  I  employed  occasionally  in  Cairo,  used  to 
discourse  upon  the  matter  as  follows  : 

"I  save  money  for  buy  wife.  When  I  save  three  pounds  I 
buy  wife,  one  wife.  I  now  have  save  two  pounds,  I  have  wife 
next  year." 

The  contract  between  bridegroom  and  deputy  is  nearly  always 
verbal,  but  in  presence  of  three  or  more  witnesses.  The  first 
27 


664  "coming  down"  with  presents. 

chapter  of  the  Koran  is  recited  by  them  in  unison,  and  certain 
prayers  or  other  formulae  are  repeated,  and  the  bridegroom  is 
fairly  "  hooked."  Before  they  separate  they  fix  the  night  when 
the  bride  is  to  be  taken  to  the  bridegroom's  house. 

Eight  or  ten  days  pass  away.  He  sends  presents  to  her,  and 
she  and  her  family  are  busy  preparing  linen,  carpets,  clothing, 
and  other  items  of  an  outfit  for  the  bride,  so  that  all  the  dowry 
and  generally  much  more  is  expended  for  her  use.  The  articles 
thus  bought  belong  to  her  under  all  circumstances,  and  she  takes 
them  away  in  case  she  is  divorced. 

Two  or  three  nights  before  the  wedding  the  bridegroom  hangs 
lanterns  in  front  of  his  .house  to  indicate  what  is  coming,  and 
these  lanterns  remain  there  till  after  the  wedding.  On  the  last 
night  of  his  bachelorhood  he  gives  a  party,  and  it  is  a  pleasing 
custom  of  the  country  that  the  persons  invited  to  this  party  are 
expected  to  bring  or  send  presents,  so  that  the  entertainment 
generally  pays  for  itself,  and  very  handsomely,  too. 

Traces  of  this  custom  are  found  in  American  weddings,  w^here 
the  relations  and  friends  of  the  victims  are  expected  to  "come 
down  "  with  valuable  articles  that  may  be  useful  in  housekeeping, 
and  at  the  same  time  will  "spout"  well  at  the  pawnbroker's. 

The  day  before  the  bride  is  to  be  brought  home  she  goes  to 
the  bath  ;  her  feminine  friends  and  relatives  accompany  her  in 
procession.  In  front  are  the  musicians  ;  then  come  married  rel- 
atives ;  then  unmarried  girls  and  then  the  bride. 

She  walks  under  a  canopy  of  bright  colored  silk,  carried  by 
four  men  who  sustain  a  pole  at  each  corner.  The  canopy  is  open 
in  front,  but  closed  on  the  other  sides  and  the  bride  walking  be- 
neath it  is  completely  concealed  by  her  dress  which  generally 
consists  of  red  silks  or  a  red  cashmere  shawl  over  her  ordinary 
clothing.  Two  of  her  friends  walk  with  her  under  the  canopy, 
one  on  each  side  and  the  procession  is  ended  by  a  couple  of  mu- 
sicians and  the  rag-tag  of  small  boys  that  adhere  to  processions 
in  all  parts  of  the  globe. 

The  party  remains  several  hours  in  the  bath  which  is  generally 
hired  for  the  occasion,  and  they  sometimes  have  a  grand  feast 
there.  Then  they  return  to  her  house  and  have  another  feast, 
and  on  the  following  afternoon  she  is  taken  to  the  bridegroom's 


AN    ORIENTAL    WEDDING. 


665 


house  in  a  procession  similar  to  that  of  the  bath.     She  is  con- 
ducted to  the  harem  ;  her  friends  sup  with  her  and  then  depart. 

The  same  evening  the  bridegroom  submits  himself  to  the 
manipulations  of  his  barber,  and  then  goes  to  one  of  the  mosques 
accompanied  by  musicians,  torch-bearers,  and  friends.  He  says 
his  prayers,  goes  home,  sups  with  his  friends  and  leaves  them 
after  a  time  to  their  pipes  and  coffee  while  he  proceeds  to   the 

harem.     There  he  finds 

the  bride  and  her  attend- 
ant. The  latter  retires  ; 
the  bridegroom  lifts  the 
veil  from  the  bride's  head 
and  for  the  first  time  sees 
her  face. 

So  much  for  the  forms 
of  courtship  and  mar- 
riage. 

Another  important 
element  of  matrimon\ 
is  divorce,  and  it  is  more 
prevalent  than  in  our  own 
country  for  the  reason 
that  it  is  easier.  Indiana 
and  other  states  famous 
for  their  facilities  for 
unsplicing  married  coup- 
les might  learn  some- 
thing from  benighted 
Egypt  and  something  in 
the  language  of  the  pop- 
ular advertisement  "to  their  advantage."  Divorce  is  fashionable 
and  every  respectable  man  must  indulge  in  it. 

The  first  few  days  of  my  stay  in  Cairo  our  party  employed  a 
guide  whom  we  found  at  the  hotel.  He  was  an  intelligent  Mo- 
hammedan speaking  French  quite  well,  and  his  certificates  of 
character  were  most  flattering.  While  I  was  questioning  him 
about  marriage  customs  he  declared  with  no  appearance  of  regret 
in  any  form : 


AN   EGYPTIAN    BARBER. 


666  DIVORCES    IN    EGYPT. 

"  I  have  had  nine  wives  and  am  now  Hving  with  my  tenth. 
When  I  don't  like  a  wife  I  divorce  her." 

The  whole  story  is  told  in  the  last  sentence  of  his  remark — 
•"  When  I  don't  like  a  wife  I  divorce  her."  The  only  form  of  di- 
vorce necessary  is  for  the  husband  to  say  to  the  wife  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  single  witness,  "  I  divorce  you."  No  residence  in  Chi- 
cago or  Indianapolis  is  necessary  ;  there  are  no  lawyers  to  be  en- 
gaged and  no  fees  to  be  paid  ;  no  troublesome  affidavits  about  im- 
compatibility  of  temper  and  the  like  are  to  be  signed,  nor  must 
one  stretch  his  conscience  in  making  oath  to  any  document.  Say 
only  "  I  divorce  you,"  and  the  work  is  accomplished. 

As  a  consequence  of  these  facilities  the  people  of  Egypt  are 
very  much  married.  Men  can  be  found  in  Cairo  by  the  hundred 
who  have  had  as  many  as  twenty  or  thirty  wives  in  half  that 
number  of  years,  and  women  who  have  had  the  same  plurality  of 
husbands  in  a  similar  time.  But  divorced  women  are  not  consid- 
ered as  desirable  as  those  who  have  never  been  married,  and  con- 
sequently these  frequent  divorces  fall  more  heavily  on  them  than 
upon  men.  The  Khedive  is  well  aware  of  the  debasing  effect  of 
the  marriage  laws  and  has  improved  them  in  several  ways. 

Polygamy  is  becoming  less  popular  every  year,  and  would 
probably  die  out  altogether  in  course  of  time  if  it  were  not  ex- 
pressly sanctioned  by  the  Koran. 

The  legal  number  of  wives  is  four,  but  not  one  man  in  five 
hundred  in  Cairo  or  Constantinople  avails  himself  of  the  privi- 
lege. A  Mohammedan  whom  I  questioned  one  day  on  the  sub- 
ject of  polygamy  made  the  following  reply : 

"  I  have  one  time  two  wife.  Now  I  have  one  wife.  One  wife 
make  house  enough  warm.  Two  wife  make  house  so  hot  you 
bake  bread  in  all  times  and  no  fire.  You  have  three  wife, — Bis- 
millah, — house  hot  so  no  man  live  there." 

The  mother-in-law  has  the  same  popularity  among  husbands 
in  Moslem  countries  that  she  enjoys  in  more  western  lands. 
Most  men  there  prefer  to  marry  women  whose  mothers  are  dead 
and  who  have  no  near  relatives  of  their  own  sex,  and  some  hus- 
bands forbid  their  wives  to  see  any  women  except  those  who  are 
related  to  the  lord  and  master  of  the  house.  But  this  latter  rule 
is  very  seldom  enforced. 


CHAPTER     LIII. 


WINTER   ON  THE  NILE— THE  KHAMSEEN  AND  ITS  EFFECTS— BE- 
DOUIN LIFE. 

Winter  in  Egypt— A  soft  and  balmy  air — A  Rainstorm  on  the  Nile — An  Asylum  for 
Invalids— The  Month  of  Flowers— The  "  Khamseen"  What  is  it?— A  blast  as 
from  a  Furnace — Singular  effects  of  the  South  Wind — A  Sun  like  Copper  and  a 
Sky  like  Brass — A  cloud  of  Sand — Eating  Dirt — Fleeing  from  the  Khamseen — 
How  the  Laboring  classes  live — Hungry  but  not  Cold — Oriental  Houses — An  Ex- 
cursion to  Heliopolis — Habits  of  the  Bedouins — A  Fastidious  People — Life  in  a 
Bedouin  Encampment — Among  the  Obelisks — How  they  were  brought  Five  Hun- 
dred Miles — The  Madonna-Tree. 

THE  winter  climate  of  Egypt  is  one  of  the  most  charming  in 
the  world  and  some  persons  say  it  is  the  most  delightful  to 
be  found  anywhere.  I  met  invalids  there  who  had  been  at  all 
the  famous  resorts  of  the  West  Indies,  at  the  Sandwich  Islands, 
in  the  south  of  France,  in  Spain,  anywhere  and  everywhere,  and 
they  give  the  credit  of  superiority  to  Egypt. 

Unfortunately  the  winter  of  1873-4  was  very  bad,  the  worst 
ever  known  in  Cairo,  so  the  old  residents  said.  There  was  a 
great  deal  of  rain  ;  altogether  during  the  winter  it  rained  on 
seventeen  days  ;  sometimes  only  for  a  few  minutes,  and  again 
there  were  several  hours  of  pouring  rain.  Ordinarily  there  will 
be  from  six  to  ten  showers  in  the  course  of  the  winter,  and  for  the 
rest  of  the  time  there  is  the  clear  sky  of  Egypt,  day  after  day,  and 
night  after  night.  I  was  there  nearly  four  months  and  aired  my 
umbrella  only  twice  in  that  time  though  there  were  two  other 
occasions  when  I  would  have  been  glad  to  air  it ;  I  was  caught 
in  heavy  showers  with  no  better  protection  than  my  cane,  and 

{667) 


668  THE    CLIMATE    OF    EGYPT. 

was  forced  to  go  home  in  a  condition  like  that  of  a  cat  after  an 
involuntary  bath. 

While  I  was  up  the  Nile  there  was  one  slight  shower  of  five 
minutes  or  so  one  evening  and  that  was  all ;  at  the  same  time 
there  was  a  heavy  rain  in  Cairo  that  converted  all  the  streets  into 
lanes  of  mud  and  made  it  very  difficult  to  get  around.  And  in 
Alexandria  it  is  much  worse  as  the  rain  falls  there  many  a  time 
when  not  a  drop  is  known  in  Cairo.  The  farther  you  go  to  the 
South  in  Egypt  the  drier  you  find  the  climate  until  you  get  be- 
yond the  desert  country  and  into  the  region  of  the  tropical  rains. 

Among  the  invalids  who  go  there  there  are  some  who  are 
greatly  benefited,  while  others  find  no  relief  or  are  positively  in- 
jured. At  my  hotel  there  were  several  ailing  persons  ;  some  with 
difficulties  of  the  chest,  others  with  bad  circulation  of  the  blood, 
others  with  cerebral  affections,  others  recovering  from  broken  or 
sprained  limbs,  and  others  with  a  shortness  of  bank  account.  For 
the  last  Cairo  is  not  to  be  recommended,  as  it  is  an  expensive  place 
and  the  habits  of  the  country  require  cash  payments  unless  you 
can  find  somebody  willing  to  give  you  credit. 

As  for  the  other  sufferers,  some  grow  rapidly  better,  and  some 
grow  rapidly  worse  until  sent  away  by  the  doctors,  and  I  have 
known  two  cases  of  chest  difficulty  where  one  man  recovered 
almost  entirely,  and  the  other  afflicted  almost  exactly  as  his  neigh- 
bor was  obliged  to  leave  in  a  fortnight  under  penalty  of  furnish- 
ing a  fee  to  the  coroner  if  he  remained  longer. 

A  resident  physician  says  that  bronchial  affections,  chronic 
diseases  of  the  mucous  membrane,  debilitated  circulation  and 
scrofulous  diseases  of  all  kinds  are  more  likely  to  be  subdued  in 
Egypt  than  most  other  maladies.  Some  consumptives  have 
been  entirely  restored  by  a  voyage  on  the  Nile  and  where  a  man 
is  in  search  of  a  dry  atmosphere  he  can  find  it  for  three  or  four 
months  without  trouble,  provided  he  can  undertake  the  voyage 
on  the  river  so  as  to  spend  a  fortnight  or  three  weeks  in  Nubia 
about  the  beginning  of  the  year.  He  will  thus  avoid  the  few 
rains  of  Cairo  and  get  back  to  the  city  in  season  for  the  delight- 
ful weather  at  the  end  of  March. 

There  is  an  end  to  the  delightful  winter  climate  of  Cairo,  a  cli- 
mate with  which  I  was  enchanted  and  regretted  exceedingly  to 


THE    "KHAMSEEN."  669 

leave.  In  all  the  winter  I  did  not  need  an  overcoat  except  when 
going  out  for  a  carriage  ride,  I  did  not  need  a  fire  in  my  room 
and  there  was  no  place  for  making  one  even  had  I  wanted  it. 
Every  day  I  was  able  to  sit  at  an  open  window  and  write — some- 
times with  my  coat  off — and  the  thermometer  from  eleven  o'clock 
till  an  hour  before  sunset  was  rarely  lower  than  68°.  The  nights 
are  cool  and  the  mornings  particularly  so,  but  as  I  do  not  rise 
early  except  upon  compulsion  the  morning  freshness  did  not  in- 
commode me. 

It  is  necessary  to  be  very  cautious  about  the  night  air,  and  one 
should  not  go  out  in  the  evening  without  wrapping  the  throat  in 
something  that  will  keep  off  the  dew.  But  whatever  the  nights 
may  be,  the  days  are  warm  and  one  can  sit  in  the  open  air,  with- 
out danger  and  with  positive  comfort,  provided  there  is  no  wind 
blowing  !  The  trees  were  in  full  leaf,  and  during  the  month  of 
March  there  was  an  abundance  of  flowers.  But  early  in  April 
comes  the  Khavisecn. 

"  What  is  that  ? "  you  may  possibly  ask. 

Well,  early  in  April,  though  sometimes  not  till  the  middle  or 
end  of  that  month,  there  comes  a  wind  from  the  south,  a  hot  de- 
bilitating wind  that  makes  you  feel  as  stupid  as  a  dead  horse, 
and  as  cross  as  a  bear  whose  ears  and  tail  were  cropped  yester- 
day. The  mercury  goes  above  par  in  the  shade,  and  is  at  a  pre- 
mium of  twenty-five  or  thirty  per  cent,  in  the  sun.  Every  drop 
of  moisture  has  been  wrung  from  the  atmosphere  in  its  passage 
over  the  desert,  and  the  blast  upon  you  feels  like  the  breath  of  a 
furnace.  Everything  dries  up — furniture  cracks  ;  the  leaves  fall 
from  the  trees  ;  the  hair  crackles  and  emits  sparks  in  combing ; 
your  newspaper  will  rustle  and  crack  as  though  held  over  the 
flame  of  a  lamp ;  the  sheet  of  the  letter  you  are  writing  will  curl 
up,  and  before  you  are  at  the  end  of  a  word  of  three  s)llables, 
the  first  part  of  it  will  have  the  ink  as  dry  as  though  baked  in  a 
kiln  ;  and  a  wet  cloth  hung  at  the  window  dries  up  almost  in- 
stantaneously. If  you  are  in  the  house,  you  think  you  will  walk 
out,  and  if  you  walk  out  you  will  wish  you  had  staid  in.  It  is 
time  for  you  to  settle  your  hotel  bill,  and  get  away  from  Cairo. 

This  wind  is  called  here  the  "  Khamseen,"  but  is  better  known 
to  the  outer  world  as  the  simoon  or  sirocco.     It  begins  generally 


6/0  A    CLOUD    OF    SAND. 

by  blowing  a  single  day,  and  then  you  have  several  days  of  plea- 
sant weather  ;  then  you  will  have  two,  three,  or  four  days  of 
wind  in  succession,  and  then  an  interval  of  about  the  same  length 
before  another  blast  sets  in.  The  natives  say  there  are  usually 
about  fifty  days  of  it  altogether,  and  hence  its  name,  KJiamseen 
being  the  Arabic  word  for  fifty.  Some  years  it  is  very  mild — 
not  more  than  thirty  days  of  it — and  the  next  year  it  may  be 
mild  or  it  may  be  worse,  I  didn't  propose  to  stay  there  to  find 
out.  I  had  one  day  of  the  Khaviseen,  and  that  satisfied  my 
curiosity. 

In  addition  to  the  heat,  the  air  is  full  of  the  finest  sand  so  that 
the  sun  looks  like  a  ball  of  burning  copper,  and  the  sky  becomes 
yellow.  The  sand  finds  its  way  everywhere  ;  the  furniture  of  the 
room  will  be  covered  with  it ;  you  find  it  in  your  soup  and  in 
nearly  every  dish  that  you  eat ;  and  I  was  told  that  it  will  get 
inside  your  watch-cases,  even  though  you  wrap  your  timepiece  in 
buckskin,  and  lay  it  away  in  the  bottom  of  your  trunk  till  the 
sirocco  is  over.  If  you  have  a  hollow  tooth  you  can  take  enough 
sand  out  of  it  at  the  end  of  the    Khavisccn    to  fill  an  hour-glass. 

Dost  thou  like  the  picture?  Methinks  I  hear  your  emphatic 
negation. 

Strangers  generally  leave  when  this  desert  wind  comes,  and 
those  of  the  residents  who  can  afford  it  make  a  trip  to  Europe, 
or  if  not  there,  to  Alexandria.  ■  On  the  sea-coast  there  is  less 
wind,  and  the  air  is  several  degrees  cooler  than  at  Cairo. 

Alexandria  is  quite  a  pleasure  resort  in  the  summer ;  the 
court  generally  goes  there  to  put  in  the  warm  weather,  and  sniff 
the  breezes  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  the  foreign  representa- 
tives do  likewise.  The  season  at  Cairo  ends  when  the  court 
takes  its  departure  ;  the  city  of  the  Caliphs  becomes  dull  and 
uncomfortable.  What  a  contrast  to  the  most  delightful  winter 
on  the  face  of  the  globe  ! 

A  great  deal  has  been  written  about  the  sufferings  of  the  lowest 
classes  in  Egypt,  and  we  have  had  some  wonderful  pictures  of 
native  distress  painted  by  travellers.  The  house  of  the  fellah  is 
a  mud  hovel,  his  clothes  are  scanty  and  his  food  is  coarse. 
He  is  not  liberally  paid  for  his  labor,  and  he  eternally  begs  for 
"  backsheesh,"  not  that  he    expects  always   to  get  it,   but  from 


HOW    THE    LABORING    CLASSES    LIVE. 


673 


force  of  habit.  He  might  have  a  cleaner  house  if  he  would,  but 
as  for  his  clothes  they  are  more  superfluous  than  necessary.  If 
it  were  not  for  the  prejudices  of  education,  he  might  go  in  naked- 
ness and  would  not  suffer  ;  he  would  be  warm  enough  in  the  day 
time  without  any  clothing,  and  if  he  remained  in  doors  at  night 
he  would  be  equally  comfortable  A  strip  of  cloth  around  his 
loins  would  be  enough  to  protect  him  under  ordinary  circum- 
stances, and  if  he  wants  to  get  himself  up  luxuriously,  he  can 
mount  a  long  shirt  of  blue  cotton,  and  the  thing  is  accomplished. 
The  laboring  classes  doubtless  suffer  from  hunger — were  there 
ever  any  laboring  classes  anywhere  that  did  not  ? — but  they  do 


COURT   OF  A   HOUSE   IN   EGYPT. 

not  suffer  from  cold  and  wet.  Hunger  here  is  not  accompanied 
by  its  two  great  allies,  cold  and  rain,  and  to  my  mind  it  is  robbed 
of  much  of  its  terror.  Is  not  the  condition  of  the  poor  ten  times 
as  bad  in  our  great  cities  in  winter  as  in  summer,  solely  for  the 
reason  that  there  must  be  heat  and  shelter  along  with  food  to 
keep  away  suffering  ?  When  I  look  upon  this  careless  people  and 
remember  the  advantages  of  their  climate,  I  think  they  are  to  be 
envied  perpetually  by  the  poor  of  London  or  New  York 

The  court  is  one  of  the  characteristics  of  an  Oriental  house. 
Even  the  meanest  hovels  of  the  lowest  classes  have  something 
of  the  kind.     The  passage  from  the  doorway  into  the  court  is 


6/4  ORIENTAL    HOUSES. 

usually  so  contrived  that  no  view  can  be  had  from  the  street  into 
it ;  this  is  sometimes  done  by  the  erection  of  a  wall,  or  by  giving 
a  turn  to  the  passage  that  leads  into  the  court.  Some  houses 
have  one  court,  others  two,  and  three  are  not  uncommon.  If  a 
house  has  but  one  court,  it  is  generally  an  open  space  or  quad- 
rangle, round  which  the  apartments  for  the  inmates,  and  in 
country  places  also  the  sheds  for  the  cattle,  are  arranged.  In  the 
very  poorest  of  these  there  is  merely  one  apartment,  and  a  shed 
for  cattle,  and  the  court  or  yard  is  surrounded  with  a  hedge  of 
thorny  boughs,  having  only  one  court,  of  a  far  superior  kind. 
Entering  into  the  courtyard  you  see  around  you  a  number  of 
little  buildings,  not  deficient  in  convenience,  and  occasionally 
presenting  a  certain  air  of  elegance — though  frequently  con- 
structed on  no  regular  plan.  In  these  are  found  various  little 
chambers,  one  piled  upon  the  other,  the  half-roof  of  which  always 
forms  a  terrace  for  walking,  from  which  a  little  flight  of  steps  or 
ladder  leads  to  the  dwelling-house,  or  to  the  upper  terrace.  This 
court  is  well  paved  ;  on  one  side  doors  lead  to  the  apartments  of 
the  family,  and  on  the  other  to  those  of  the  servants.  They  are 
often  beautified  with  a  number  of  fragrant  trees  and  marble 
fountains,  and  compassed  round  with  splendid  apartments  and 
divans.  The  divans  are  floored  and  adorned  on  the  sides  with  a 
variety  of  inlaid  marbles  wrought  in  interlacing  patterns.  They 
'  are  placed  on  all  sides  of  the  court,  so  that  at  one  or  other  of 
them,  shade  or  sunshine  can  always  be  enjoyed  at  pleasure.  In 
the  summer  season,  or  when  a  large  company  is  to  be  received, 
the  court  is  usually  sheltered  from  the  heat  and  inclemencies  of 
the  weather  by  a  curtain  or  awning,  which,  being  expanded  upon 
ropes  from  one  wall  to  the  other,  may  be  folded  or  unfolded  at 
pleasure. 

I  spent  a  day  delightfully  and  profitably  in  making  an  excur- 
sion from  Cairo  to  Heliopolis,  where,  in  remote  antiquity  an  im- 
perial city  stood,  but  whose  site  is  now  only  marked  by  a  few 
mounds,  and  by  an  obelisk  supposed  to  be  the  oldest  in  Egypt. 
The  road  leads  through  fertile  gardens,  and  irrigated  fields  of 
corn  and  rice,  and  past  many  Bedouin  encampments. 

The  Arabs  are  peculiarly  sensitive  to  noisome  smells,  and  in  a 
city  they  may  frequently  be  observed  hurrying  along  with  their 


LIFE    IN    A    BEDOUIN    ENCAMPMENT. 


675 


nostrils  closed  by  a  corner  of  the  kerchief,  to  avoid  the  effluvia 
which  surrounds  them.  This  is  one  reason  why  they  always  pre- 
fer pitching  their  tents  without,  to  residing  within  the  walls. 
The  real  Bedouin  visits  the  city  only  to  make  purchases  at  the 
bazaars,  and  he  is  the  most  picturesque  of  all  the  moving  figures 
in  an  Eastern  crowd.  Strong,  but  slender  in  frame,  his  striped 
abba  hangs  easily  in  heavy  folds  over  his  shoulder,  and  his  dark 
skin  and  prominent  features,  and  keen  black  eye,  all  mark  the 
unchanged  son  of  the  desert,  who  belongs  not  to  the  city,  but 


A  BEDOUIN   ENCAMPMENT   NEAR   CAIRO. 


passes  through  it,  indifferent  to  its  conveniences  and  luxuries, 
and  despising  its  customs  like  his  ancestors.  In  my  journey  up 
the  Nile  I  saw  many  encampments  of  genuine  Bedouins,  and  I 
always  found  that  an  Arab  in  his  encampment  is  a  different  being 
from  what  he  is  when  wandering  in  the  desert.  Within  the 
former  his  time  is  idly  passed,  smoking,  drinking  coffee,  and 
sleeping  ;  yet  his  steed  was  always  ready  caparisoned  at  the  door 
of  his  tent ;  beside  him  in  the  sand  was  planted  his  spear,  and 
at  the  call  of  his  chief  he  was  ready  to  vault  into  his  saddle,  and 
rush  forth  to  battle  with  all  the  fire  of  his  nation.     A  taste  for 


676 


THE    STORY    TELLER    OF    THE    DESERT. 


story-telling  is  still  one  of  their  leading  characteristics.  They 
know  no  greater  pleasure  than  to  assemble  together  in  their  en- 
campment, and  seated  in  front  of  one  of  their  number,  smoke, 
and  listen  with  the  most  intense  interest  to  the  exploits  of  war- 
riors, the  adventures  of  lovers,  or  the  enchantment  of  sorcerers, 
until  want  of  breath  and  want  of  sleep  put  an  end  to  the  tales. 


THE   MADONNA  TREE. 


From  Cairo  to  Heliopolis  the  distance  is  only  five  or  six  miles, 
and  a  donkey  ride  of  less  than  two  hours  brought  us  to  the  foot 
of  the  solitary  obelisk  that  exists  to  remind  us  of  the  once  famous 
"  city  of  the  sun."  The  obelisk  is  of  red  granite,  and  must  have 
come  from  the  quarries  of  Syene  five  hundred  miles  away.  It 
measures  sixty-seven  feet  in  height,  and  its  base  is  buried  several 
feet  in  earth,  gradually  deposited  by  successive  overflows  of  the 


THE    MADONNA   TREE. 


677 


Nile.  It  is  covered  with  hieroglyphics  and  bears  the  name  of 
Osirtesen  I.,  the  most  illustrious  member  of  the  Xllth  Dynasty, 
who  reigned  over  both  Upper  and  Lower  Egypt.  Who  executed 
it,  or  sculptured  it,  or  how  it  was  transported  to  its  present  site, 
and  erected,  are  questions  not  yet  answered. 

Hard  by  there  is  an  old  sycamore  tree — called  the  Madonna's 
tree — under  which,  tradition  says,  Mary  rested  with  her  infant 
when  flying  from  Herod.  It  looks  like  a  stunted  tree  of  enormous 
growth,  as  if  several  trees  springing  up  side  by  side  had  grown 
together.  That  the  tree  as  it  now  stands  is  of  very  great  age, 
there  can  be  no  manner  of  doubt. 


CHAPTER     LIV. 

LAST  DAYS  IN  EGYPT. 

The  Last  Stroll  around  the  Mooskee — Talking  to  the  Donkey-Boys  and  Dragomen 
— A  Queer  Lot— A  Pertinacious  Customer— The  Judge's  Expedient— A  Little 
Humbug — Rich  American  Tourists  "in  a  Horn" — The  Dragoman's  Salutation 
"Sing  Sing  !" — Getting  Rid  of  a  Nuisance — Buying  Keepsakes — Out  of  the  Desert 
into  a  Garden — Curiosities  for  Farmers — A  Mohammedan  Festival — Curious  Sights 
— Snake  Charmers — How  they  do  it — Music-Loving  Reptiles — On  an  Egyptian 
Railroad— Pompey's  Pillar — A  Ludicrous  Accident — Alexandria,  its  Sights  and 
Scenes — Climbing  Pompey's  Pillar — A  Daring  Sailor — An  Arab  Swindle — Going 
on  Board  the  Steamer — Farewell  to  Egypt 


THE  hot  wind  from  the  desert  made  itself  manifest  early  in 
April,  and  said  in  terms  that  were  not  to  be  mistaken  "  Get 
out  of  this." 

I  took  a  farewell  stroll  around  the  Mooskee,  the  Esbekeeah, 
and  the  Shoobra  road  and  skirmished  for  the  last  time  with  the 
donkey  boys  and  dragomen  who  infest  those  places.  Among 
the  tribes  of  ragged,  dirty,  vagrant  urchins  who  swarm  in  the 
streets  of  Cairo,  the  donkey  boys  head  the  list.  Every  traveller 
knows  them  and  you  hear  them  spoken  of  as  "  Confounded  ras- 
cals" or  "  Bright  little  fellows"  according  to  the  luck  the  Prank- 
ish traveller  has  happened  to  meet  among  the  species.  Occa- 
sionally you  see  boot-blacks  with  kits  similar  to  their  cousins  in 
more  civilized  countries,  and  the  two  who  used  to  hang  around 
my  hotel  in  Cairo  always  ready  for  "  backsheesh"  whether  they 
gave  my  boots  a  "  shine"  or  not,  were  the  most  unprepossessing 
little  gamins  I  ever  met. 

(678) 


DONKEY-BOYS  AND  DRAGOMEN, 


679 


On  the  whole  I  had  no  regret  at  parting  with  the  donkey  boys 
and  dragomen,  particularly  with  the  latter,  who  hang  around  the 
the  hotels  at  Cairo  in  great  numbers,  and  were  always  ready  to 
agree  to  take  you  anywhere  you  wish  to  go.  One  of  them  an- 
swered "  yes"  to  my  question  as  to  the  possibility  of  accompany- 
ing me  to  the  moon,  and  offered  to  undertake  the  job  for  thirty 
shillings  a  day  and  furnish  everything.     As  I  was  not  then  ready 


BOOT-BLACKS    OF   CAIRO. 


for  an  aerial  voyage  I  did  not  pursue  the  subject,  and  as  he  left 
me  alone  after  that  I  conclude  that  he  must  have  felt  offended. 

One  fellow  used  to  annoy  two  of  us  greatly  with  propositions 
to  enter  our  employ ;  and  half  a  dozen  times  every  day  he  used  to 
pester  us  with  proposals,  and  we  endeavored  to  hire  him  to  let  us 
alone  but  all  to  no  purpose.  He  had  performed  a  slight  service 
for  us  for  which  he  would  take  nothing:  and  he  felt  that  this  ser- 


680  A    LITTLE    HUMBUG. 

vice  entitled  him  to  hang  around,  and  ask  us  for  recommendations, 
and  try  to  make  a  contract  with  us.  We  could  not  shake  him 
off  and  one  day  the  Judge  hit  upon  a  neat  expedient. 

"  I  shall  be  much  obliged,"  said  the  dragoman,  "  if  you  will  get 
me  a  good  party  of  Americans  to  go  to  Jerusalem.  I  take  them 
cheap  and  very  well."  And  twenty  times  a  day  he  made  this 
proposal. 

One  day  when  we  saw  him  standing  on  the  veranda  of  the  ho- 
tel— he  had  not  caught  sight  of  us  but  was  evidently  waiting  for 
our  appearance — the  Judge  walked  forward  as  if  he  were  anxious- 
ly looking  for  the  dragoman,  and  said, 

"  I  have  a  good  thing  for  you.  There  may  be  a  party  of  rich 
Americans  coming  down  the  Nile,  and  if  you  can  find  them  and 
make  a  bargain  with  them  to  pay  a  high  price  you  will  be 
lucky." 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  Mohammed,  his  eyes  glistening  with  delight, 
"  I  make  good  bargain  with  them,  I  take  them  cheap  and  very 
well." 

"  Never  take  them  cheap.  High  price,  the  highest, — fifty 
shillings  a  day  each,  and  there  ought  to  be  ten  of  them." 

Mohammed  clapped  his  hands  with  delight  as  the  Judge  con- 
tinued, 

"  They  will  pay  fifty,  yes  sixty  shillings  a  day  if  they  agree  to. 
They  are  very  rich  and  would  like  to  own  half  the  money  in 
America." 

"  Bismillah  !  and  that  be  so  .?" 

"  Yes,  and  you  must  do  the  thing  in  style  ;  silver  plated  camel 
for  the  old  man,  and  dromedary  with  six  legs  for  his  daughter  the 
princess." 

"  I  give  them  everything,  everything.  I  take  them  cheap  and 
very  well.  They  pay  me  one  hundred  shillings  a  day  and  shall 
have  what  they  just  want.     When  they  come  ?" 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  the  Judge  doubtfully.  "  But  you  had  bet- 
ter go  to  the  landing  at  Boulak  and  wait  for  them." 

"  No,  I  waits  here  in  the  hotel  for  them.     They  come  here." 

"Doubtful,"  said  the  Judge,  "very  doubtful.  I  don't  know 
what  hotel  they  will  come  to  and  don't  think  they  will  come  to 
this.  You  had  better  go  to  the  landing  and  wait  for  them,  and 
then  you  will  be  there  all  the  time  you  stay  in  Boulak." 


GETTING    RID    OF    A    NUISANXE.  68l 

"  I  understand,  I  go  to  Boulak  and  find  ze  rich  American. 
And  what  shall  I  ask  his  name  ?" 

"  The  Grand  Duke  of  Chicago ;  about  fifty  years  old,  lost  his 
left  ear  in  a  duel,  and  wears  three  pairs  of  eye-glasses.  Was  de- 
corated by  the  Prince  of  Hoboken  five  years  ago,  and  always 
wears  his  decoration.  You  will  know  him  by  that — as  large  as  a 
soup-plate  and  twice  as  greasy.  When  you  see  him,  step  up  and 
say  "  Sing-Sing,"  and  he  will  understand  you  know  all  about  him. 
Sing  Sing  is  one  of  his  palaces." 

"  I  understand  and  he  pay  a  hundred  shillings  a  day  and  extra 
for  ze  camels." 

"  Yes,  a  hundred  shillings  and  camels,  food,  tents,  and  drago- 
man extra.  Will  give  five  hundred  pounds  "backsheesh"  to  you 
before  you  start." 

Mohammed  could  wait  no  longer.  The  prospect  of  such  a 
mine  to  explore  was  too  good  to  be  lost.  He  went  to  Boulak  im- 
mediately, and  during  the  rest  of  my  stay  I  saw  him  only  once, 
and  then  he  was  walking  in  the  morning  toward  Boulak  to  take 
up  his  waiting  station.  I  understood  afterward  that  we  really 
did  him  a  good  turn  as  his  stay  at  Boulak  was  rewarded  with  a 
customer, — not  as  good  as  the  Grand  Duke  of  Chicago,  but  yet 
a  remunerative  one. 

The  day  at  length  arrived  for  my  departure.  So  I  paid  a  fare- 
well visit  to  our  excellent  representative,  Consul-General  Beards- 
ley,  and  to  a  few  other  friends  and  acquaintances,  and  in  other 
ways  made  ready  for  departure. 

I  spent  a  last  morning  in  the  bazaars  and  devoted  an  hour  to 
the  purchase  of  an  oriental  necklace  and  a  few  other  trifles.  An 
hour  was  the  least  time  in  which  I  could  do  the  necessary  bar- 
gaining ;  in  London  or  Paris  it  would  have  been  all  over  in  two 
minutes. 

In  buying  the  necklace  I  left  the  shop  four  times  and  gradually 
beat  the  fellow  down  to  a  decent  price  ;  he  asked  less  on  each 
occasion  that  I  approached  him,  and  if  I  had  devoted  half  a  day  to 
the  business  I  might  have  done  better  than  I  did.  I  paid  him 
for  my  purchase  a  little  more  than  fifty  per  cent,  of  what  he  de- 
manded at  the  outset  and  probably  quite  as  much  as  he  expected 

to  receive. 

38 


682 


'BACKSHEESH. 


I  left  Cairo  by  the  slow  train  as  I  wished  to  see  the  stations 
along  the  road,  and  was  in  no  hurry  to  be  whisked  through  by 
express.  Two  of  us  offered  a  rupee,  (fifty  cents,)  to  the  conductor 
if  he  would  give  us  the  exclusive  use  of  a  compartment,  and  to 
make  sure  that  he  would  carry  out  his  agreement  we  suggested 
that  we  would  pay  him  at  the  end  of  the  journey.  He  was  en- 
tirely content  with  the  arrangement  and  carried  out  his  part  of 
^^  it   to    perfection.      He 

^     ^^E  came    to   us    at    every 

^Bl^^^pi^&  station    to   see    if    we 

^-"^  wanted   anything,    and 

when  we  left  the  car 
at  places  where  the 
stops  were  long,  he 
carefully  locked  the 
compartment  and  sta- 
tioned a  brakeman  to 
watch  it  and  make  sure 
that  nobody  else  should 
enter  it.  We  gave  him 
his  rupee  at  the  last  sta- 
tion before  reaching  Al- 
exandria and  saw  him 
no  more. 

He  was  an  Arab  with 
a  good-natured  face,  and 
as  soon  as  the  money 
was  promised  him  he 
appeared  to  regard  it  as 
a  sure  thing.  It  is 
somewhat  uncompli- 
mentary to  the  natives 
of  this  country,  that 
they  are  more  inclined  to  trust  strangers  than  each  other.  If  an 
Egyptian  official  or  merchant  had  made  a  promise  like  ours  the 
conductor  would  have  paid  little  heed  to  it  as  the  chances  would 
hav^e  been  against  fulfillment,  but  he  accepted  the  word  of  a 
stranger  without  hesitation. 


MOSQUE    OF    SULTAN    BERKOOK,    AND   FOUNTAIN 
OF    IS.MAIL   PASHA,   AT   CAIRO. 


FAREWELL    TO    CAIRO. 


683 


Carriage  drivers,  donkey  boys,  and  boatmen  repeatedly  told 
me  "  the  foreigners  always  pay  what  they  agree  to,  but  the  na- 
tives don't."  "  We  like  to  deal  v/ith  you  even  when  you  make 
very  close  bargains  because  we  feel  sure  of  the  money,  but  it  isn't 
so  with  the  Egyptians  and  Turks." 

Cairo  faded  in  the  distance.  We  watched  the  arrowy  spires  of 
the  Mosque  of  Mohammed  Ali  till  they  became  the  faintest  of 
lines  against  the  sky,  and  then  went  out  altogether  ;  we  traced 
the  group  of  mosques  that  cover  the  tombs  of  the  Caliphs  and  are 
backed  by  the  sandy  hills  of  the  Mokattam,  and  we  studied  the 
ensemble  of  mosques  and  minarets,  and  palm-trees,  as  long  as 


MODERN   EGYPTIAN   OVEN. 


Study  was  possible.  Then  we  turned  to  the  grand  old  pyramids 
away  on  the  western  horizon,  and  when  these  disappeared  we 
fixed  our  eyes  on  the  course  of  the  Nile,  and  the  line  that  marked 
the  termination  of  the  fertile  land  and  the  beginning  of  the 
Desert. 

The  Desert  soon  disappeared,  and  we  rode  through  the  flat 
plain,  carpeted  with  the  richest  of  verdure,  and  furrowed  here 
and  there  with  great  and  small  and  medium  canals.  In  some 
fields  the  crops  appeared  half  grown;  in  others  they  were 
just  beginning,  and  in  others  the  plows — rude  implements 
which  the  most  careless  farmer  in  America  would  disdain — were 
at  work. 


684  ON  AN    EGYPTIAN    RAILWAY. 

The  plow  of  Egypt  is  the  same  in  appearance,  and  it  may  be 
the  same  identically,  that  was  in  use  before  the  Pyramids  were 
built,  and  before  the  foundation  of  Thebes,  with  her  hundred 
gates.  It  is  a  billet  of  wood,  pointed  at  the  forward  end,  and 
furnished  with  a  beam  and  an  upright,  the  latter  serving  as  a 
handle.  A  pair  of  oxen,  or  buffaloes,  are  the  propelling  power,  and 
the  yoke  that  fastens  them  together  is  a  straight  stick  held  in 
place  by  ropes  or  wooden  pins. 

Numerous  sakkiehs,  turned  by  oxen  or  buffaloes,  were  at  work, 
and  in  nearly  every  instance  the  animals  were  blindfolded  with 
pads  of  coarse  straw-work  over  their  eyes.  Frequently  we  passed 
villages  with  mud  walls,  and  with  the  general  aspect  of  uncleanli- 
ness  and  discomfort  that  I  had  observed  in  upper  Egypt,  and  that 
one  observes  in  nearly  all  the  native  villages. 

The  thermometer  stood  at  ioo°  in  the  shade  and  ii8°  in  the 
sun,  but  so  long  as  we  kept  in  the  shade  it  was  not  uncomfort- 
able. The  dryness  of  the  Egyptian  air  makes  the  heat  far  more 
supportable  than  the  same  temperature  in  New  York.  I  have 
suffered  more  at  85°  on  Manhattan  Island  than  in  Egypt  at  100°, 
and  I  found  it  easier  to  move  about  there  than  in  an  American 
atmosphere  fifteen  degrees  cooler.  The  natives  were  at  work  in 
the  fields  without  any  appearance  of  discomfort,  but  I  observed 
that  the  buffaloes,  where  at  liberty  to  do  so,  had  sought  the  water 
and  were  lying  there  with  only  their  heads  visible. 

At  every  station  children  came  out  to  peddle  water,  which 
they  carried  in  gooleJis,  or  bottles  of  porous  earth.  For  half  a 
franc  we  bought  one  of  these,  gooleJi,  water,  and  all — the  girl  ex- 
cepted, though  it  is  quite  possible  that  a  franc  or  two  would  have 
secured  her. 

Our  train  was  long,  and  consisted  of  one  first-class,  one  second- 
class,  and  eight  third-class  carriages.  The  first  and  second-class 
carriages  were  only  moderately  filled,  but  the  third-class  were 
crowded,  so  that  it  must  have  been  anything  but  comfortable  to 
ride  in  them.  The  sides  of  the  third-class  coaches  are  quite  open, 
so  that  the  passengers  get  the  full  benefit  of  dust  and  rain. 

The  most  important  town  passed  on  this  line  of  railway  is 
Tantah,  a  place  with  many  handsome  houses  and  a  vice- 
regal  palace,  and   known  as    the  capital  of  one  of    the  Delta 


THE    FESTIVAL    AT    TANTAH.  685 

provinces.  Many  of  our  third-class  passengers  stopped  there^ 
and  many  others  joined  us,  as  it  happened  to  be  the  time  of  one 
of  the  three  fairs  or  festivals  held  here  each  year. 

The  railway  station  was  crowded  with  people,  the  streets  were 
full,  and  on  the  outskirts  of  the  town  we  could  see  tents,  booths, 
and  crowds,  just  as  one  sees  them  elsewhere  at  great  gatherings 
of  a  rural  population  for  a  fair  that  is  to  last  several  days.  There 
were  not  a  dozen  Europeans  visible  in  the  crowd ;  all  were  natives, 
chiefly  from  the  surrounding  region,  though  many  had  doubtless 
come  from  Cairo  and  Alexandria. 

The  tents  were  of  all  sorts,  sizes,  and  colors,  and  there  were 
horses,  donkeys,  and  camels,  picketed  around  them  or  grazing  in 
the  meadow  close  at  hand.  The  people  were  generally  in  their 
best  clothes,  and  there  was  quite  a  variety  of  turbans  and  flowing 
robes.  The  delay  of  our  train  for  an  hour  or  more  gave  us  an 
opportunity  to  study  the  crowd  and  its  peculiarities. 

January,  April,  and  August,  are  the  months  for  these  festivals, 
each  of  which  lasts  eight  days,  and  brings  together  sometimes  as 
many  as  two  hundred  thousand  people.  Ostensibly  they  come 
to  pray  at  the  tomb  of  a  celebrated  saint  of  Islam,  none  other 
than  Seayyid-Ahmed  el-Bedawee,  a  sort  of  Moslem  Big  Indian, 
who  flourished  about  seven  hundred  years  ago,  and  was  buried  at 
Tantah.  The  pilgrims  recite  a  few  prayers  at  his  tomb,  and  then 
attend  to  fun  and  business.  A  large  trade  is  carried  on  in  horses, 
camels,  and  other  merchandise,  and  formerly  there  was  an  exten- 
sive commerce  in  slaves.  The  sound  of  Oriental  music  was 
borne  to  our  ears,  and  we  strolled  through  row  after  row  of  tents 
or  booths  occupied  as  cafes,  and  the  resort  of  singing  and  danc- 
ing girls,  jugglers,  story-tellers,  and  performers  of  all  kinds. 

Among  the  sights,  none  seemed  to  draw  larger  crowds  than 
the  snake-charmers,  several  of  whom  were  displaying  their  skill 
before  admiring  audiences. 

The  snake-charmers  of  Egypt  are  much  like  their  confreres  of 
the  extreme  Orient,  but  are  less  famous  in  the  matter  of  skill 
and  daring.  An  Egyptian  snake-charmer  carries  his  pets  in  a 
bag,  and  is  ready  to  give  a  performance  whenever  and  wherever 
he  can  secure  a  patron.  One  afternoon,  while  in  Cairo,  I  was 
enjoying  my  after-dinner  cigar  and  strolling  through  the  Esbe- 


686  THE  SNAKE-CHARMER  OF  TANTAH. 

keeah  Gardens,  when  along  came  a  man  with  a  sort  of  satchel 
over  his  shoulder  and  a  girdle  confining  his  frock  to  his  waist. 
He  stopped,  and  I  did  the  same.  He  then  took  two  or  three 
large  snakes  out  of  the  satchel  and  hung  the  empty  receptacle 
on  the  fence.  The  snakes  slowly  unwound,  and  to  my  astonish- 
ment I  perceived  that  they  were  cobras,  the  dreaded  cobra  de 
capello  of  India,  one  of  the  most  deadly  serpents  on  the  face  of 
the  globe.  He  struck  them  with  a  small  stick  as  they  were 
standing  erect  with  their  heads  puffed  out  with  rage,  and  their 
tongues  darting  rapidly  from  their  mouths.  He  had  an  attendant 
who  played  a  sort  of  rude  flute,  and  the  serpents,  who  had  been 
trained  with  the  stick,  kept  an  imperfect  time  to  the  music  in  the 
undulations  of  their  bodies.  The  performer  picked  up  the  snakes 
and  allowed  them  to  wind  around  his  arms  and  neck,  and  when 
he  had  put  them  through  their  paces  he  restored  them  to  the 
satchel  and  asked  for  "backsheesh,"  as  a  reward  for  his  and  their 
labors. 

But  the  show  was  not  over.  I  observed  that  his  blue  cotton 
frock  bulged  out  just  above  the  girdle  ;  and  what  do  you  suppose 
he  carried  there  t 

He  opened  the  front  of  his  frock  or  shirt  and  thrust  his  hand 
into  the  opening  and  down  to  his  waist.  When  he  withdrew  it 
he  had  a  dozen  or  more  small  snakes  in  his  grasp,  and  very  delib- 
erately placed  them  on  the  ground.  Then  he  produced  another 
and  another  handful,  until  a  peck  or  so  of  small  serpents  were 
crawling  and  wriggling  before  our  wondering  eyes  ! 

The  snake-charmers  I  saw  at  the  festival  at  Tantah  went 
through  pretty  much  the  same  performance  as  that  I  witnessed 
in  Cairo,  and  a  very  few  moments  sufficed  to  satisfy  my  curiosity. 

A  great  deal  of  wine  is  consumed  at  these  festivals,  and  in  the 
evening  one  can  see  many  things  to  interest  and  amuse  him,  as  the 
manners  and  customs  of  the  frequenters  of  the  fair  are  of  a  very 
unrestrained  character.  It  is  the  right  and  privilege  of  a  barren 
woman  to  visit  the  fair  at  Tantah  and  pray  at  the  tomb  of  the 
saint,  and  her  devotion,  continued  through  the  week  of  the  fair, 
is  generally  rewarded  as  she  desires  it  should  be.  Her  wish  to 
go  to  Tantah  is  one  that  cannot  be  denied  without  the  violation 
of  a  custom  that  has  existed  for  many  centuries.     There  are  other 


RAMLEH.  62>J 

fairs  throughout  Egypt  similar  to  the  one  at  Tantah,  but  none  of 
them  succeed  in  bringing  together  such  a  large  number  of 
people. 

After  leaving  Tantah  we  crossed  upon  iron  bridges  the  Rosetta 
and  Damietta  branches  of  the  Nile,  and  sped  along  over  a  line  of 
railway  as  straight  as  a  sunbeam.  There  was  not  much  engineer- 
ing work  in  building  the  road,  nothing  more  than  to  lay  down  the 
track  after  the  construction  of  a  bed  high  enough  to  keep  the 
rails  above  the  height  of  the  annual  inundation.  As  we  approach 
the  coast  the  country  becomes  more  marshy  and  unproductive, 
and  the  scenery  is  decidedly  monotonous.  For  several  miles  the 
track  is  through  a  marsh,  and  on  nearing  Alexandria  we  catch 
sight,  on  our  left  hand,  of  Lake  Mareotis,  a  shallow  body  of  water 
much  like  Lake  Lenzalah,  through  which  the  Suez  Canal  runs 
after  leaving  Port  Said. 

We  pass  near  the  bank  of  the  Mahmoodieh  Canal,  which  con- 
nects Alexandria  with  the  Nile,  and  was  constructed  by  order  of 
Mohammed  Ali  in  less  than  a  year's  time.  It  cost  about  three 
hundred  thousand  pounds  sterling,  and  employed  a  quarter  of 
a  million  men,  of  whom  twenty  thousand  died  of  plague,  hunger, 
and  cholera.  The  average  width  of  the  canal  is  about  one  hun- 
dred feet,  and  its  total  length  is  fifty  miles — a  reasonably  gigantic 
operation  for  less  than  a  twelvemonth. 

The  canal  was  full  of  boats  as  we  passed  it ;  we  could  not  see 
them  on  account  of  the  high  bank,  but  their  masts  and  sails  were 
visible,  and  so  we  argued  that  the  boats  were  there.  Near  Alex- 
andria the  banks  of  the  canal  are  bordered  with  pretty  villas  and 
gardens  for  some  distance,  and  some  of  the  villas  are  quite  pic- 
turesque. It  has  become  the  fashion  for  wealthy  Alexandrians 
to  have  their  residences  in  this  locality,  and  there  is  a  watering- 
place  and  popular  resort  known  as  Ramleh  about  half  an  hour's 
ride  from  the  city.  The  Viceroy  has  a  palace  there,  and  generally 
resides  in  it  during  a  portion  of  the  summer. 

Our  train  swept  toward  the  city,  passing  in  sight  of  Pompey's 
Pillar,  and  through  a  collection  of  houses  that  form  a  sort  of 
industrial  suburb.  The  station  is  at  the  extreme  west  of  the 
town,  and  is  sufficiently  large  for  all  practical  purposes,  and  con- 
tained, at  our  arrival,  the  usual  array  of  dragomen,  porters,  and 


688  POMPEYS    PILLAR. 

Other  hangers-on.  The  streets  are  quite  a  contrast  to  those  of 
Cairo,  as  they  are  paved  with  huge  blocks  of  stone  that  have  so 
worn  away  in  places  as  to  make  them  very  rough,  and  quite  un- 
pleasant for  carriage-driving.  The  pavement  was  once  excellent, 
but  it  has  received  no  attention,  and  the  dust  indicates  that  it  is 
very  rarely  swept.  The  dust  flew  about  in  clouds,  and  my  com- 
panion said  that  when  he  was  last  here  there  were  some  heavy 
rains,  and  where  we  found  dust,  he  had  found  a  regular  Slough  of 
Despond  of  mud.  I  can  well  believe  the  mud  must  have  been 
something  frightful,  and  a  ride  through  it  upon  a  donkey  would 
prove  to  be  something  serious. 

One  of  my  acquaintances  tells  me  of  being  pitched  head  fore- 
most into  six  or  eight  inches  of  it  after  putting  on  his  best  clothes 
and  starting  out  to  make  a  call,  v/hich  he  indefinitely  postponed 
and  returned  to  his  hotel,  where  he  hung  up  to  dry.  He  had  the 
satisfaction — on  the  ground  that  misery  loves  company — of  see- 
ing, while  on  the  way  back  from  his  mishap,  a  gaudily-dressed 
French  woman  undergo  a  similar  tumble  where  the  mud  was 
deeper.  Her  feathers,  and  flounces,  and  laces,  and  general  finery 
were  sadly  bedraggled,  and  when  she  emerged,  with  the  aid  of 
a  couple  of  Arabs,  she  resembled  a  canary  bird  that  has  passed 
through  a  street-sweeping  machine. 

The  city  founded  by  and  named  for  Alexander  the  Great  con- 
tains very  few  traces  of  its  former  magnificence.  Cleopatra's 
Needle  and  the  so-called  Pompey's  Pillar  are  the  stock  sights  ; 
the  former  is  a  granite  shaft,  covered  with  hieroglyphics,  and  is 
far  inferior  every  way  to  the  obelisks  at  Karnak  and  Luxor. 
More  beautiful  and  better  placed  is  the  Pillar,  standing  on  an 
elevation  near  the  Mohammedan  burying-ground,  and  consisting 
of  a  base,  shaft,  and  capital,  the  whole  nearly  a  hundred  feet 
high,  and  the  shaft  alone  seventy  feet  long  and  nearly  ten  feet  in 
diameter.  The  shaft  is  a  single  piece  of  red  granite,  highly  pol- 
ished and  elegantly  made,  the  workmanship  being  far  better  than 
that  of  base  or  capital.  It  is  probable  that  a  statue  once  stood 
on  the  pillar,  and  there  are  some  old  pictures  of  Alexandria  in 
which  the  Pillar  is  represented  with  a  statue  upon  it.  There  is 
no  way  of  reaching  the  summit  except  by  a  considerable  outlay 
for  ropes  and  ladders,  and  also  for  the  necessary  labor  of  arranging 


1 


ALEXANDRIA,  69I 

them.  It  has  been  twice  ascended  in  the  present  century,  once 
by  a  party  of  English  sailors,  and  once  by  an  enterprising  woman. 
In  each  instance  a  string  was  stretched  over  the  capital  by  means 
of  a  kite  ;  the  string  was  then  used  to  draw  up  a  stout  cord,  the 
cord  to  draw  up  a  rope,  and  the  rope  to  draw  up  a  ladder.  By 
the  ladder  the  ascent  is  easy  enough,  but  it  requires  a  cool  head 
and  a  sure  grasp. 

A  paragraph  with  the  heading  "Ancient  Alexandria"  might  be 
about  as  brief  as  the  famous  chapter  on  the  snakes  of  Ireland, 
Of  the  capital  that  contained  a  population  of  half  a  million,  a 
library  of  I  don't  know  how  many  thousand  volumes,  temples, 
palaces,  and  piles  stupendous,  there  are  little  more  than  vestiges 
remaining.  Here  and  there  may  be  found  a  few  relics  ;  walls 
and  foundations  of  buildings  may  be  traced  in  a  few  localities, 
and  there  are  some  mutilated  statues  and  other  fragments  that 
have  survived  the  touch  of  Decay's  Effacing  Fingers. 

From  ancient  times  Alexandria  steadily  declined,  so  that  at  the 
end  of  the  last  century  it  had  a  population  of  six  thousand  ;  dur- 
ing the  French  and  English  occupations  it  began  to  improve, 
but  it  made  its  greatest  progress  under  Mohammed  Ali.  The 
successors  of  that  prince  have  continued  to  foster  it,  and  at  the 
present  day  it  is  a  busy,  bustling  city  of  nearly  a  quarter  of  a 
million  inhabitants,  of  whom  one-fourth  are  Europeans. 

There  is  an  air  of  commerce  everywhere,  and  when  one  arrives 
at  the  railway  station  and  drives  through  the  streets,  he  realizes 
that  he  is  in  a  seaport  long  before  he  has  caught  sight  of  the  sea, 
or  of  the  forest  of  masts  that  rise  in  the  harbor. 

Near  the  Great  Square  you  can  visit  the  bazaars  or  shops, 
where  you  will  see  a  reproduction  of  the  sights  and  scenes  of 
Cairo. 

The  Great  Square  is  a  sort  of  public  park,  filled  with  shade- 
trees  and  seats,  and  having  in  the  centre  an  equestrian  statue  of 
Mohammed  Ali.  At  each  end  there  is  a  fountain,  and  around 
the  square  are  buildings  of  a  very  substantial  character,  quite 
worthy  of  any  great  city  of  modern  times.  Everything  is  mod- 
ern. There  is  nothing  to  remind  you  of  antiquity,  and  even  the 
Arabs  that  cluster  around  the  fountains  are  nearly  all  boys,  and 
seem  more  modernized  than  their  brethren  at  Cairo. 


692  MISCHIEVOUS    DONKEY-BOYS. 

As  soon  as  we  were  quartered  at  the  hotel,  we  went  to  the 
steamship  ofifice  to  engage  our  passage,  and  having  paid  for  our 
tickets,  concluded  it  would  be  well  to  visit  the  ship  and  examine 
our  quarters.  We  hired  donkeys  for  a  ride  to  the  Marine,  or 
landing-place,  and  away  we  cantered  through  the  streets  of  the 
Arab  quarter.  There  was  a  crowd  of  boatmen  that  wrangled  a 
long  time  to  secure  us,  and  with  such  effect  that  we  found  a  boat 
to  take  us  to  the  ship  and  back  again  for  sixpence  each. 

The  boatmen  were  mostly  Arabs  and  Maltese,  strong,  active 
fellows,  whose  rowing  abilities  are  much  better  than  their  man- 
ners. There  are  no  docks  or  wharves  to  the  harbor  ;  the  ships 
must  lie  out  and  discharge  their  cargoes  by  means  of  lighters, 
and  passengers  must  land  and  embark  in  small  boats.  The  har- 
bor is  good  without  being  excellent ;  the  entrance  is  difficult  and 
tortuous,  and  the  sea  frequently  rolls  in  very  uncomfortably. 
There  is  an  outside  harbor,  where  most  of  the  foreign  ships  lie, 
as  the  inner  one  is  rather  shallow  for  them.  The  outer  one  is 
subject  to  winds  and  a  heavy  sea,  but  will  be  greatly  improved 
when  the  new  breakwater,  now  constructing,  is  finished.  Hitherto 
the  government  has  not  cared  to  improve  the  entrance  of  the 
harbor,  as  a  bad  entrance  is  easier  defended  than  a  good  one,  but 
a  better  sentiment  prevails  at  present,  and  the  harbor  is  to  be 
made  as  good  as  possible  with  a  fair  outlay  of  money. 

When  we  came  back  to  the  landing,  we  had  a  fair  instance  of 
the  swindling  tendencies  of  the  Arab  donkey-drivers.  We  had 
left  our  beasts  there,  and  as  we  had  not  paid  for  them,  we  felt 
that  there  was  no  danger  that  the  owners  would  take  them  away. 
The  instant  we  touched  the  steps  an  urchin  appeared,  and  behind 
him  was  another,  each  holding  a  donkey. 

"  Your  donkeys  is  gone,"  said  the  foremost,  "  and  you  is  to  ride 
back  on  this  donkeys." 

We  were  about  mounting  in  acceptance  of  this  reasonable 
statement,  but  took  the  precaution  to  look  around  before  doing 
so.  Our  own  beasts  and  drivers  were  a  little  distance  away,  and 
the  story  of  the  boy  who  announced  their  departure,  proved  to  be 
of  the  most  piscatorial  character.  The  boatmen  and  donkey- 
drivers  of  Alexandria  have  a  worse  reputation  than  those  of  any 
other  Egyptian  city. 


SITE    OF    THE    ANCIENT    PHAROS.  693 

On  the  shore  of  the  Eastern  harbor  there  are  several  caf^s,  so 
as  to  command  the  marine  air  and  view.  We  sat  a  while  in  one 
of  these  on  our  return  from  the  ship,  and  found  the  breeze  very 
grateful  and  refreshing  after  our  hot  experience  in  Cairo  and  on 
the  railway.  From  the  covered  balcony  we  could  see  Cleopatra's 
needle  on  the  right,  among  a  lot  of  houses,  while  away  to  the 
seaward  rose  the  lighthouse  which  occupies  the  site  of  the  ancient 
"  Pharos,"  one  of  the  earliest  lighthouses  known  to  mariners — 
the  earliest  in  fact — and  once  known  as  one  of  the  seven  wonders 
of  the  world.  Its  name  is  perpetuated  in  the  appellation  of  light- 
houses in  the  French  and  other  languages,  (phare,)  and  its  cost  at 
the  time  of  its  erection  by  Ptolemy  Philadelphus  was  something 
very  great. 

History  says  it  was  a  square  building,  of  white  marble,  several 
stories  high,  each  story  smaller  than  the  one  below  it,  and  there 
was  a  road  winding  round  it  with  so  gentle  a  slope  that  chariots 
could  be  driven  to  the  top.  The  fair,  but  imprudent  Cleopatra,  is 
said  to  have  handled  the  ribbons  over  a  pair  of  animals  some- 
what better  than  omnibus  horses,  and  driven  them  to  the  summit 
of  the  Pharos,  where  she  rested  a  few  moments,  and  then  drove 
them  down  again.  What  a  pity  she  did  not  break  her  neck  in 
the  descent,  so  as  to  save  some  of  us  an  unpleasant  bit  of  scandal 
and  that  horrid  story  of  the  asp. 

Much  care  and  attention  is  bestowed  upon  the  gardens,  and 
one  of  them,  belonging  to  a  Greek  resident,  proved  to  be  excep- 
tionally handsome.  It  was  adorned  with  statues,  and  marble 
pavements,  and  in  one  corner  there  was  a  charming  little  Kios- 
que  where  four  chairs  around  a  table  suggested  a  pleasant  break- 
fast or  lunch  for  the  master  and  his  family  or  friends.  There  are 
many  of  these  gardens  in  and  around  Alexandria,  and  they  con- 
tain a  bewildering  array  of  African  and  other  plants. 

At  the  appointed  hour  we  went  on  board  the  steamer,  and  to 
avoid  trouble  we  made  a  contract  with  a  fellow  to  transport  our 
baggage  from  the  hotel  to  the  ship  and  ourselves  with  it.  One 
condition  of  the  contract  was  that  our  trunks  were  not  to  be 
opened  at  the  Custom  House  ;  I  don't  know  how  much  "  back- 
sheesh" he  paid  to  the  officials,  but  he  had  it  arranged  before- 
hand so  that  nothing  was  disturbed      It  is  forbidden  now  to  take 


694  FAREWELL    TO    EGYPT. 

antiquities  out  of  Egypt,  and  anything  of  the  sort  found  in  the 
trunk  of  a  departing  stranger  is  hable  to  confiscation. 

And  behold  us  now  on  the  deck  of  a  Malta-bound  steamer,  pre- 
pared, when  she  lifts  her  anchor,  to  say  good-bye  to  Egypt. 

Farewell  to  the  land  of  the  purest  sky,  and  the  most  lovely 
winter  climate  that  the  world  can  boast ;  to  the  temples  and 
tombs  that  tell  us  of  a  people  far  back  in  the  misty  past — a  peo- 
ple whose  mechanical  skill  surpass  that  of  all  those  who  have 
followed  them,  and  before  whose  monuments  we  stand  with 
bowed  and  reverential  heads  ;  and  to  the  shrines  of  Isis  and 
Osiris  to  whose  mystic  worship  the  most  powerful  nation  of  its 
time  was  devoted,  and  for  whom  the  most  gigantic  temples  were 
erected. 

And  farewell  to  the  Nile,  that  mysterious  river  whose  sources 
are  yet  unknown,  and  on  whose  banks  have  been  written  through 
sixty  centuries  many  important  pages  of  the  world's  history. 
Mighty  and  brilliant  empires  have  there  risen  and  fallen  ;  great 
cities  have  flourished  and  disappeared.  Persian  and  Greek  and 
Roman  have  come  and  gone  ;  Pagan  and  Jew  and  Christian  and 
Moslem  have  built  their  temples,  and  have  seen  the  glory  and 
decline  of  their  religions ;  on  its  sleepy  waters  floated  the  frail 
bark  that  held  the  infant  Moses,  and  beside  them  rested  the  Holy 
family  when  it  fled  from  Bethlehem  that  the  Saviour  child  might 
escape  the  fury  of  Herod. 

Farewell  to  the  desert  with  its  glowing  sands,  and  to  the  rich 
valley  whose  fertility  six  thousand  years  of  assiduous  cultivation 
have  not  been  able  to  exhaust ;  to  waving  palms  and  kneeling 
camels;  to  the  city  of  the  Caliphs, the  Mamelukes,  and  the  Khe- 
dive, where  the  bustle  and  activity  of  the  Occident  have  not  alto- 
gether changed  the  dignified  mien  or  opened  the  eyes  of  the 
sleepy  Oriental ;  where  he  sits  to-day  as  he  sat  in  the  time  of 
Haroun  Al-Raschid,  and  waits  in  his  little  shop  till  Heaven 
chooses  to  send  a  purchaser  for  his  wares. 

To  the  land  where  Pharaoh  ruled,  and  Cleopatra  loved  and 
died  ;  where  Past  and  Present  stand  face  to  face,  and  where  the 
opposing  waves  of  Eastern  and  Western  civilizations  are  met  we 
utter  a  hearty  good-bye.     When  shall  we  see  you  again  ? 

FINIS. 


